Kokinshu #318

(Topic unknown.)

    Would that, from now on,
it fell without ceasing --
    the falling white snow
that weighs down and bends over
the miscanthus by my house.

—24 September 2012

(Original author unknown.) The flakes are falling harder, with a romantic image of snow on pampas grass -- and hints of what would in later times develop into an aesthetic appreciation of loneliness. For miscanthus, see #242. And yes, "fall" is repeated in slightly different inflections in the original. Compare the this initial enthusiasm for the season to the melancholy of later poems about snow.


ima yori wa
tsugite furanamu
waga yado no
susuki oshinami
fureru shirayuki

---L.