Kokinshu #28

Topic unknown.

    In the springtime when
myriads of birds twitter,
    each and every thing
once again renews, and yet
I myself keep growing old.

—15 October 2010

Original author unknown. Medieval commentators took momochidori to be an otherwise unknown name of a bird, with each textual tradition identifying a different one as part of secret lore handed down from teacher to student. The modern scholarly consensus is that it means literally "hundred-thousand-bird" -- that is, hundreds and thousands of them. To be fair to the past, a chidori written with the kanji meaning "thousand-bird" is the common name for plover, but nevertheless it is possible for exegesis to be too subtle. Note that the greening of spring is not explicit, thus subtly transitioning us back to the season's regular chronology, and that my version has so little poetry it's barely passable as even a pony. Bah.


momochidori
saezuru haru wa
mono-goto ni
aratamaredomo
ware zo furiyuku

---L.