Kokinshu #465
Thursday, 31 October 2013 07:10![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lnhammer Paper marbling (suminagashi)
But if there weren't
a pathway that travels through
the mists of springtime,
the geese that come in autumn
would not be returning north.
harugasumi
naka shi kayoiji
nakariseba
aki kuru kari wa
kaerazaramashi
---L.
But if there weren't
a pathway that travels through
the mists of springtime,
the geese that come in autumn
would not be returning north.
—24 October 2013
Original by Ariwara no Shigeharu. "Non-living things" is an elastic category: dictionaries define suminagashi as the process of marbling paper (or cloth), rather than the result. Commentaries compare the scene of mists breaking up to the marble pattern, which feels like a bit of a stretch. Translator additions: "North" is interpretive, while "that travels" is an attempt to reproduce the effect of an emphatic marker on naka, "within/through."harugasumi
naka shi kayoiji
nakariseba
aki kuru kari wa
kaerazaramashi
---L.