Kokinshu #286
Friday, 10 August 2012 07:05![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lnhammer (Topic unknown.)
Like the autumn leaves
that could not stay but scattered
in the autumn winds,
course determined by others,
it is I who is wretched.
akikaze ni
aezu chirinuru
momijiba no
yukue sadamenu
ware zo kanashiki
---L.
Like the autumn leaves
that could not stay but scattered
in the autumn winds,
course determined by others,
it is I who is wretched.
—5 August 2012
(Original author unknown.) More literally, the fourth line is "not deciding (one's) course," but adding an active agent lets the clause, like the original, apply to both the leaves above it and the speaker below. In any case, this is not only a seasonal poem but could just as easily be a poem of parting (leaving for or from an assigned posting) from book VIII or a lament by woman abandoned by a lover who tired (a double-meaning of aki, "autumn") of her.akikaze ni
aezu chirinuru
momijiba no
yukue sadamenu
ware zo kanashiki
---L.