Kokinshu #324
Monday, 29 October 2012 07:06![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lnhammer Written in Mt. Shiga pass.
When the white snow
settles over every place
without distinction,
I see it, yes, as flowers
blooming also on the crags.
shirayuki no
tokoro mo wakazu
furishikeba
iwao ni mo saku
hana to koso mire
---L.
When the white snow
settles over every place
without distinction,
I see it, yes, as flowers
blooming also on the crags.
—27 September 2012
Original by Ki no Akimine. For the pass over Shiga, see #115. Grammatical ambiguity: the first two lines could be a separate sentence or part of a continuous statement about the blanketing. The former would make a better poem ("The white snow makes no distinction of place. When it settles over (the world) ... "), but such a preface would be an old-fashioned style in Akimine's time -- and both comparing the snow to flowers (instead using of a stronger direct metaphor) and the fact that seeing flowers requires that the snow not actually be uniform, suggests reading the weaker poem. (This also happens to be the traditional reading.) I still like the image of white patched on dark rocks, though.shirayuki no
tokoro mo wakazu
furishikeba
iwao ni mo saku
hana to koso mire
---L.