Kokinshu #19

(Topic unknown.)

    Even though the snow
has not vanished from the pines
    in the fair mountains,
in the capital, they pick
young greens in the open fields.

—25 September, rev 30 October 2010

(Original author unknown.) With no explicit subject, it's ambiguous whether the speaker is one of the pickers, or even in the city. Given the exclamatory final -keri on the picking can indicate an element of surprise, I take it (s)he is not. Note, btw, the implicit contrast of dark green pine and light green sprouts.


miyama ni wa
matsu no yuki dani
kienaku ni
miyako wa nobe no
wakana tsumikeri

---L.