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Kokinshu #379
Tuesday, 9 April 2013 07:02 Written when a friend traveled to the eastern provinces.
Your departure now
for hither and thither
among the white clouds
is a journey that, ah!, shreds
my heart into prayer strips.
shirakumo no
konata kanata ni
tachiwakare
kokoro o nusa to
kudaku tabi ka na
---L.
Your departure now
for hither and thither
among the white clouds
is a journey that, ah!, shreds
my heart into prayer strips.
—7 April 2013
Original by Yoshimine no Hideoka. His parentage (though presumably he's somehow related to Henjô and Sosei) and dates are unknown, but he appears in court records during the last two decades of the 800s as a middling courtier. He has this one poem in the Kokinshu. ¶ For nusa prayer strips, see #298. Here's another example of what's in effect an adverbial stock epithet: shirakumo no, "of/among the white clouds," modifying tachi-, the "de-" of "depart" but meaning "rise" when alone. Omitted-but-understood verb: "is." The conceit is a little odd, but the poem's sound is not bad and I'm kinda charmed by it.shirakumo no
konata kanata ni
tachiwakare
kokoro o nusa to
kudaku tabi ka na
---L.