Kokinshu #254

(Topic unknown.)

    I won't get attached
to the colored autumn leaves
    on this mountain
sacred to the mighty gods
-- for even they will scatter.

—3 June 2012

(Original author unknown.) Chihayaburu is a stock epithet with a general sense of "awesome" or "mighty" (originally something like having a wild, uncontrollable strength) applied to kami, "gods," which is the first part of kannabi, here clearly generically "consecrated"; applying the epithet in English requires splitting the adjective, much as in #140. "Even" is interpretive, but strongly implied by the syntax.


chihayaburu
kannabi yama no
momijiba ni
omoi wa kakeji
uturou mono o

---L.