Kokinshu #88

[lnhammer]

Topic unknown.

    Might they be tears,
this falling spring shower?
    -- for indeed there is
no one who does not regret
the cherry blossoms scattering.

—14 May 2011

Original by Ôtomo no Kuronushi (c.830-923?), another of the so-called Six Poetic Geniuses. Unlike most Kokinshu authors, Kuronushi wasn't nobility -- there is no record of his having any court title -- but rather was from a land-owning clan of Ômi Province (modern Shiga Prefecture) reputed to be of remote imperial descent. He is mentioned in court records in 866, took part in the second known poetry competition in 887, and wrote poems for imperial occasions in 897 and 917. He has four or three or two poems in the Kokinshu -- some attributions are tentative, including this one, which some manuscript traditions claim is author unknown. As for the poem itself, a sentence structure inverted it has -- normally, the "for/because" clause would precede the consequence. The cherries are once again unmarked, but it's hard to read them as anything but the subject of "scatter." I'm kinda fond of the funkiness of two implicitly nominalized verbs balanced against each other, but the disjoint between the initial suggestion's tentativeness and final statement's emphatic strength makes the poem feel a little off-kilter.


harusame no
furu wa namida ka
sakurabana
chiru o oshimanu
hito shi nakereba

---L.