Kokinshu #344

(Topic unknown.)

    I keep tallying
the grains of sand on the beach
    by the wide ocean:
may they total as many
as my lord's millennia.

—19 November 2012

(Original author unknown.) The word kimi (in the previous, here, and next two poems) can be simply an honorific "you," but given this has been recited at imperial coronations, "my lord" has the sanction of tradition. The stock epithet wata-tsu-umi (see #250) is here applied to the beach with the effect of "of/by the broad ocean," while masago is a poeticism for sand.


watatsuumi no
hama no masago o
kazoetsutsu
kimi ga chitose no
arikazu ni semu

---L.