Kokinshu #45

Written on the scattering of the plum flowers at his house.

    O flowering plum,
since you never left my sight
    at neither dusk nor dawn,
in what solitude did you
then fade away and scatter?

—30 October 2010, rev 27 December 2010

Original by Ki no Tsurayuki. Another grammatically ambiguous flower -- a direct address offered more pathos and less emo than exclamation or topic/subject of the final verb. Utsurou is an archaic verb meaning "to change," usually with flowers in the sense of "to fade" but sometimes "to scatter." As commentaries don't agree on which to read here, I went with both -- Tsurayuki being a poet who is quite capable of intending us to hold both in mind.


kuru to aku to
me karenu mono o
ume no hana
itsu no hitoma ni
utsuroinuramu

---L.