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Kokinshu #132
Monday, 5 September 2011 10:05 Written on seeing women returning from picking flowers on the last day of the Third Month.
There's nothing, surely,
that can detain them, and yet,
such futility! --
how this heart's drawn to each and
every scattering flower.
todomubeki
mono to wa nashi ni
hakanaku mo
chiru hana-goto ni
taguu kokoro ka
---L.
There's nothing, surely,
that can detain them, and yet,
such futility! --
how this heart's drawn to each and
every scattering flower.
—7 August 2011
Original by Ôshikôchi no Mitsune. The flowers as symbols for the women cuts two ways: on the one hand, he's flirting with them -- on the other, it's a reminder that they, like the flowers, will one day fade. Impressive density for improvised social verse. I don't think this is going so far as hinting they should gather rosebuds while they may, as I would expect in a poem in the Western Tradition, but I could be wrong. The flowers, for what it's worth, would be probably be for placing on altars.todomubeki
mono to wa nashi ni
hakanaku mo
chiru hana-goto ni
taguu kokoro ka
---L.