Hyakunin Isshu #78

    How many nights
have you been awakened by
    the cries of plovers
come from Awaji Island,
barrier guard of Suma?

—27 July 2010

Original by Minamoto no Kanemasa, apparently pinging off imagery from the "Suma" chapter of The Tale of Genji -- fanfiction being nothing new in this world. Awaji, in the mouth of the Seto Inland Sea, was a common destination for political exiles -- thus the need for a barrier gate across the Akashi Strait at Suma near what's now Kobe. As tempting as it is to translate kayou with the modern sense of "to commute" (an extension of "travel back and forth"), the word also seems to have meant a one-way trip at the time.


awajishima
kayou chidori no
naku koe ni
ikuyo nezamenu
suma no sekimori

---L.