Kokinshu #247

(Topic unknown.)

    I shall take my robe
and dye it with dayflower
    -- even though after
the morning dew has soaked it,
the color will have faded.

—5 May 2012

(Original author unknown.) Another poem that appears in the Man'yoshu (VII:1351, with a small verbal difference that doesn't change the meaning). Tsukikusa (lit. "moon-grass," now called tsuyukusa = "dew-grass") is the Asiatic dayflower (Commelina communis), a small plant with bright blue flowers in the mornings in late summer and early autumn that was used to make a blue dye (and later a blue ink) that faded easily. With both blossom and dye being brief, it is a natural metaphor for transience. It's possible to read the flower as representing a fickle lover, either male or female -- dying one's heart being a common idiom for falling in love.


tsukikusa ni
koromo wa suramu
asatsuyu ni
nurete no nochi wa
utsuroinu tomo

---L.