Kokinshu #231

[lnhammer]

(from the same contest)

    The maidenflowers:
impossible to meet
    except in autumn
-- even though they don't grow on
the banks of Heaven's River ...

—9 April 2012

Original by Fujiwara no Sadakata (873?–932), who eventually rose to become a high-ranking minister -- in part through family connections, as his sister was Emperor Daigo's mother. This is his only poem in the Kokinshu. ¶ Yes, that's a Tanabata reference. Yes, no main verb. Yes, it is possible to invert the sentence order of a grammatical fragment -- who knew?


aki narade
au koto kataki
ominaeshi
ama no kawara ni
oinu mono yue

---L.