Kokinshu #146

(Topic unknown.)

    When I hear the voice
of the singing cuckoo,
    I'm filled with longing
for even the old hometown
where I once parted from you.

—27 September 2011

(Original author unknown.) Down from the mountains into a valley, or at least a settlement. What sort of parting is unspecified -- leaving town? a break-up? death? Ditto whom the speaker parted from -- if the act was not inflected as the speaker's personal experience, I might have gone for "where we once parted."


hototogisu
naku koe kikeba
wakarenishi
furusato sae zo
koishikarikeru

---L.