lnhammer: the Chinese character for poetry, red on white background (Default)
lnhammer ([personal profile] lnhammer) wrote2011-06-01 07:09 am

Kokinshu #93

Topic unknown.

    It isn't as if
the spring colors arrive at
    this town and not that --
so how is it we can see
some flowers bloom but not others?

—22 May 2011

Original author unknown. The faux naivete is from Chinese models -- I sometimes wonder if this influence was entirely a good thing. Also, while a line consisting of a verb in positive and then negative form ("arrive and not arrive") can strike a clever note, that doesn't mean that a second such line ("bloom and not bloom") is twice as clever; at least the structures aren't fully parallel, though the shaded distinction this implies eludes me.


haru no iro no
itari itaranu
sato wa araji
sakeru sakazaru
hana no miyoramu


---L.