Kokinshu #367

[lnhammer]

(Topic unknown.)

    Even parted from him
somewhere beyond the high clouds
    without limit,
is it ever possible
for my heart to desert him?

—24 February 2013

(Original author unknown.) Again, this is most easily read as a parting by lovers. "Beyond" is interpretive but makes idiomatic sense. It's also possible to read hito, "person," as a sort of indirect and so polite way of referring to the listener, making this an address to "you" remaining behind (and a response to the previous) instead of asking about a departed "him." The rhetorical question expects, as usual, a negative answer.


kagiri naki
kumoi no yoso ni
wakaru to mo
hito o kokoro ni
okurasamu ya wa

---L.