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Kokinshu #207
Thursday, 16 February 2012 07:01 A poem from the poetry contest at the house of Prince Koresada.
It seems I can hear
the sounds of the first wild geese
on the autumn wind.
Whose epistles, I wonder,
have they come here carrying?
akikaze ni
hatsukari ga ne zo
kikoyunaru
taga tamazusa o
kakete kitsuramu
---L.
It seems I can hear
the sounds of the first wild geese
on the autumn wind.
Whose epistles, I wonder,
have they come here carrying?
—24 January 2012.
Original by Ki no Tomonori. According to the records of the Kampyô Era Consort's contest, held around the same time, a version of this was entered there (with kikoyu, "can hear" replaced by hibiku, "resound"); scholars speculate that either our compilers got confused or a later scribe made a slip of the brush. Tamazusa is a poeticism for a message, sometimes with the suggestion of a love-letter. Compare to #30 for messenger-geese heading the other way and #14 for Tomonori using other things as messengers. As usual for Tomonori, his polished soundplay doesn't come through in translation.akikaze ni
hatsukari ga ne zo
kikoyunaru
taga tamazusa o
kakete kitsuramu
---L.