Kokinshu #429

Apricot blossoms (karamomo no hana)

    As soon as we meet,
even then I am indeed
    still more sorrowful
-- for already I'm aware
of our parting to come.

—8 July 2013

Original by Kiyowara no Fukayabu. Apricot is the probable reading, though karamomo, lit. "Chinese peach," can also refer to a, well, Chinese variety of peach -- either one, though, is a late-spring topic. One of the smoother poems so far this book, with an irrelevant topic ingenuously incorporated. Compare #372, and many love poems to come.


au kara mo
mono wa nao koso
kanashikere
wakaremu koto o
kanete omoeba

---L.