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Kokinshu #18
(Topic unknown.)
O watchman of
Beacon Field in Kasuga,
go forth and look now:
how many days will it be
till we can pick the young greens?
kasuga-no no
tobuhi no nomori
idete miyo
ima ikuka arite
wakana tsumitemu
---L.
O watchman of
Beacon Field in Kasuga,
go forth and look now:
how many days will it be
till we can pick the young greens?
—27 September 2010
(Original author unknown.) Some Kokinshu texts swap this and the next poem -- either works, in different ways, as a follow-on from #17 or lead-in to #20. Picking and eating the first young greens (freshies!) was done ceremonially, at least in court circles, on the seventh day after New Years, and a collection of seven herbs became a customary seasonal gift (see #21). Tobuhi ("leaping flames") Field was named after a signal beacon near Nara. It's possible to read this as an address to a field burner being playfully called a guard, thus tying it more tightly to #17.kasuga-no no
tobuhi no nomori
idete miyo
ima ikuka arite
wakana tsumitemu
---L.