Larry's Pretty Good Poetry Journal

Chinese bush-clover (karahagi)

    Though each empty husk
like cicada shells on trees
    rests in its coffin,
how sorrowful it is that
we can't see where the soul goes.

—25 July 2013

Original author unknown. While the meaning of topic is clear, it's uncertain which variety of bush-clover was considered Chinese at the time. Regardless, it's an early autumn topic. Pivot-word: ki is a "tree" and a "coffin," a double-meaning extended to the "husk" that's both the literal cicada shell and the empty bodies of the dead. The standard sentiment of second half does not live up to how well the first half works in the original. The effect isn't the same as leaving the bald last line unpolished in translation, but the let-down is similar.

utsusemi no
kara wa ki-goto ni
todomuredo
tama no yukue o
minu zo kanashiki


---L.

Fennel (kure-no-omo)

    "He came at this time,"
I think while longing for him,
    and so I keep seeing
only his phantom, alas!,
in the gathering twilight.

Below "hare's-foot fern" [by] Toshisada

—25 August 2013

Original by Ki no Tsurayuki. Another Teika restoration. Fennel (Foeniculum vulgare, now more commonly called uikyô) is a mid-summer topic for its flowers and a mid-autumn one for the seeds -- presumably the latter is understood here, but see the next poem. "Think" is interpretive -- the phrase might be spoken, but that seems less likely.


koshi toki to
koitsutsu oreba
yuugure no
omokage ni nomi
miewataru ka na

shinobugusa, toshisada shita

---L.

When the Nijô Empress was known as the Mother of the Crown Prince, she commanded [Yasuhide] to write a poem on a carved-wood "medo" flower.

    Even though it's not
a flowering tree, it has
    indeed blossomed.
Would that a time may come
when this aged stock bears fruit!

—24 July 2013

Original by Fun'ya no Yasuhide. Medo is the second of the three mysterious plants of the Kokinshu: traditional esoteric interpretations include that it's a type of bush-clover (medohagi) carved out of wood as part of a floral display and that it's the location of the carving, either in a covered bridleway or a type of paneled door -- with the first of these being the most popular. Regardless, in addition to the hidden topic, Yasuhide worked in a pivoty double-meaning where ko no mi is "fruit of the tree" / kono mi is "this body" -- turning the second half of the poem into a sly request for her patronage (much like #8). I like the effect of arazaramedomo, "although should not be," showing up in the middle instead of at the end like most verbal pile-ups.


hana no ki ni
arazaramedomo
sakinikeri
furinishi ko no mi
naru toki mogana

---L.

Miscanthus plumes (obana)

    We see that it is,
yet it's hard to rely on.
    Shall I be convinced
that this cicada-shell world
really doesn't exist?

—25 August 2013

Original author unknown. Obana is the plume or ear of the miscanthus (see #242), an all-autumn topic. I'm pleased to see someone actively wrestling with standard Buddhist doctrine. (Interestingly, searches found this one quoted on a Zen temple's website.) "Yet" is interpretive, but some sort of contrast seems needed to make sense.


ari to mite
tanomu zo kataki
utsusemi no
yo o-ba nashi to ya
omoinashitemu

---L.

Asters (shioni)

    Although I came, yes,
expressly to see the flowers
    in my old hometown,
their glorious blossoms have,
it seems, just withered away.

—19 July 2013

Original author unknown. Specifically, Tartarian aster (Aster tataricus, modern name shion), a perennial shrub with light purple flowers through most of autumn and into winter. "Blossoms" is interpretive, but the more literal "their being glorious" sounds rather odd in English.


furihaete
iza furusato no
hana mimu to
koshi o nioi zo
utsuroinikeru

---L.

Written for the Maidenflower Contest in Suzaku Palace, with the five characters of "o-mi-na-e-shi" (maidenflower) placed at the start of every line.

    The belling stag whose
steps wear down Mount Ogura --
    there's no one who knows
how many weary autumns
he has experienced.

—16 July 2013

Original by Ki no Tsurayuki. Not a hidden-topic poem but an acrostic. For the contest, see #230ff; for Ogura, see #312. I read aki as a pivot-word meaning "autumn" / "tired of," but this is not commonly accepted. It's also possible to take narasu as a pivot for "wear down" / "get used to" (similar to #410), but I don't see this as adding anything.


ogurayama
mine tachinarashi
naku shika no
henikemu aki o
shiru hito zo naki

---L.

Maidenflowers (ominaeshi)

    It's as if to pierce
the white dewdrops like pearls --
    the spiders have stretched
their warp threads over all
of the flowers and the leaves.

—16 July-19 August 2013

Original by Ki no Tomonori. Textual issue: my base text has ya to in l.2, which is a little confusing, and this is commonly (but not universally) emended to the more comprehensible to ya, changing a comparison-to-a-question into a question-about-a-comparison. Since the meaning is effectively the same either way, only that the emendation smooths text into Tomonori's usual graceful tempts me to make it. The topic is another old friend, this one from autumn. The stretching out of warp threads, as if on a loom, makes the dewdrops not the usual gems strung a necklace (compare #225) but ones woven onto cloth. This is an image I've not seen anywhere else, which means I should take back what I've said about Tomonori's complete unoriginality. (Either that or I need to read more extensively.)


shiratsuyu o
tama ni nuku ya to
sasagani no
hana ni mo ha ni mo
ito o mina heshi

---L.

Gentian (kutani)

    The butterfly that
doesn't even realize
    and is enraptured
by flowers that will, once they
have scattered, become rubbish.

—14 July 2013

Original by Henjô. Exactly what a kutani is is unknown beyond that it's a summer flower that grows in the mountains, but the common speculation is that it's a gentian (modern rindô, also called bellflower). Henjô has a more subtle wordplay here than I'm used to from him: madou is to be enchanted (by the flowers), but matou, written identically at the time, is to entwine/wrap oneself around (what the not-understanding does) -- "enraptured" puns on "wrap" in much the same way. (Possibly "is wrapped up in" would convey that more clearly.) Even ignoring or overlooking this doubling, though, the archbishop has pleasantly packaged an orthodox Buddhist sentiment for our delight.


chirinureba
nochi wa akuta ni
naru hana o
omoishirazu mo
madou chô ka na

---L.

Hollyhock, katsura (aoi, katsura)

    Now that the days
when we meet have become as
    infrequent as this,
how can I not believe that
this person is hard-hearted?

—12 July 2013

(Original author unknown.) This has two topic words hidden separately. The katsura is the easier to explain, being either of two trees of genus Cercidiphyllum resembling the redbud or Judas tree, cultivated for their drooping branches and vivid, scented autumn leaves. The aoi is more complicated: in modern Japanese, it means hollyhock, but in the Nara era it meant a type of wild ginger, now usually called futaba-aoi (Asarum caulescens), after which the Kyoto Aoi Festival was originally named, during which the Kamo Shrine in eastern Kyoto was originally decorated with that aoi as well as katsura. The transition between the two names had already started in the Heian period, which means the topic could be either plant. Since commentaries disagree which it is and the identity is not actually relevant to the poem, I threw up my hands and picked the prettier. Aesthete me, ya. The sequencing here seems to be based on the May festival, as katsura is ordinarily an autumn topic for either the leaves or its winged seeds. In the poem itself, the speaker could be either gender -- a waiting woman or a man who keeps getting put off. Omitted-but-understood: "infrequent."


kaku bakari
au hi no mare ni
naru hito o
ikaga tsurashi to
omowazarubeki

---L.

(Ogatama tree)

    The spirit flies off --
yet even if it came back,
    what would it see?
-- for the empty husk it left
has been turned into flames.

Below "ogatama tree" by Tomonori.

—14 July 2013

Original by Fujiwara no Kachion. Another of Teika's restorations. Here, tama is not the "gem" of the frothy poems but its homonym, "spirit." This is grammatically tangled, with three separate "even though" constructions -- which is at least one too many; a slight redistribution of conjunctions was needed for coherent English. "Empty husk" double-translates kara, while "it left" is interpretive. Funeral rites of the time involved cremation, and the relevance of the poem's content to the evergreen topic can be debated.


kakerite mo
nani o ka tama no
kite mo mimu
kara wa honoo to
narinishi mono o

ogatama no ki, tomonori shita

---L.