Kokinshu #381

Written when parting from someone.

    This thing called "parting"
doesn't even have color,
    so how can it be
it penetrates the heart
and dyes it sorrowful?

—7 April 2013

(Original by Ki no Tsurayuki.) A deceptively simple poem from Tsurayuki. "Penetrate" and "dye" double-translates shimu, done largely to bring out the point of the color. (Or so my notes from the time said -- to be honest, I haven't looked at this since. But it's time to get back into the swing of things.)


wakare chô
koto wa iro ni mo
aranaku ni
kokoro ni shimite
wabishikaruramu

---L.