Kokinshu #440

Bellflower blossoms (kichikô no hana).

    Autumn has closed in
on the fields: the colors of
    even the grass blades
where the white dew has settled
are fading and departing.

—17 July 2013

Original by Ki no Tomonori. Specifically the Chinese bellflower (Platycodon grandiflorum, modern name kikyô), one of the canonical seven flowers of autumn skipped over in the seasonal books, which blooms for a long time before finally withering -- "even" here implies that the flowers are already blown. Once again Tomonori ingenuously works in an extended hidden topic, using a "reasoning style" poem that neatly balances approach and departure in a non-mechanical way (more literally, autumn "has become close"). I'd be happier if, where the topic is worked in, the sentence structure was a little more natural.


aki chikou
no wa narinikeri
shiratsuyu no
okeru kusaba mo
iro kawariyuku

---L.