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Kokinshu #136
Wednesday, 21 September 2011 06:59 Written on seeing a cherry bloom in the Fourth Month.
Is it to prevent
us from saying "So moving!"
to all the others
that, with spring already past,
this cherry tree blooms alone?
aware chô
koto o amata ni
yaraji to ya
haru ni okurete
hitori sakuramu
---L.
Is it to prevent
us from saying "So moving!"
to all the others
that, with spring already past,
this cherry tree blooms alone?
—31 August 2011
Original by Ki no Toshisada, who appears in court records as a minor official from the 870s until his death in 881. He has four poems in the Kokinshu, plus he fails to appear in the headnote of #969. ¶ As extensively lamented in book 2, cherry blossoms are usually over well before the lunisolar Fourth Month (roughly early-May to early-June), which is the first month of summer. What is blooming is hidden in a pivot-word, being the sakura that's the first part of sakuramu ("bloom" with a speculative inflection).aware chô
koto o amata ni
yaraji to ya
haru ni okurete
hitori sakuramu
---L.