Larry's Pretty Good Poetry Journal

Written in Ôi on the last day of the Ninth Month.

    Is it in the voice
of the stag crying upon
    Ogura Mountain
like a crescent-moon evening
that autumn closes its day?

—19 September 2012

(Original by Ki no Tsurayuki.) Ôi is in the western outskirts of Kyoto, across the Ôi River from Mt. Ogura. The Ninth Month, here called nagagatsu, "Long Month," was the last month of autumn, falling from roughly early-October to early-November. Yûzukuyo, literally "night of evening moon" but understood as an evening with a crescent moon (because evening is the only time a waxing crescent is visible after sunset), is a stock-epithet for Mt. Ogura because its name sounds like it means "small darkness" -- that is, "dusk"; that idomatically autumn "darkens" to its end adds to this wordplay. However, at the end of a lunar month, the moon is a sliver of waning crescent not visible in the evening, making the epithet an implied comparison for the mountain rather than literal scene-setting. Pity. Sika deer have been poetically associated with Mt. Ogura since at least the time of the Man'yoshu. Compare to #214ff, where the belling stag is instead a symbol of mid-autumn.

yûzukuyo
ogura no yama ni
naku shika no
koe no uchi ni ya
aki wa kururamu

---L.

When he was commanded to present old poems in the Kanpyô Era, he wrote down the poem "Colored autumn leaves drift on Tatsuta River" [#284], then composed this in the same spirit.

    Seeing the color
of the waters that come down
    from the deep mountains,
I've realized that indeed
it is the end of autumn.

—14 September 2012

Original by Fujiwara no Okikaze. The command would have been from Emperor Uda. Ambiguous orthography: miyama can be read as "beautiful/fair mountains" instead of "deep in the mountains," and possibly both senses should be kept in mind. "It is" is another omitted-but-understood word. Because the model poem is about rain washing leaves into the river, the color is often interpreted as that of leaves, but given the position in the sequence, it seems likely the editors want us to see the river as now leaf-free -- evoking the time of early winter rains rather than the rains themselves.


miyama yori
ochikuru mizu no
iro mite zo
aki wa kagiri to
omoishirinuru

---L.

(Topic unknown.)

    Of the second-growths
that sprout in harvested fields
    without showing ears,
can we say, "Tired of it all,
autumn having now ended"?

—19 September 2012

(Original author unknown.) The meaning of hitsuchi or hitsuji, used to describe wild-growing rice, is uncertain but in context is probably the second growth from a reaped plant. Pivot-word: aki = "be tired of" / "autumn." Exactly who is tired of what is ambiguous, as yo can refer to the "world" in general or the world of a specific relationship -- in which latter context, the idiomatic sense "not become obvious" of ho ni idenu comes to the fore, but what to make of it is murky. Regardless, the overtones of an end-of-love poem are there. "Say" is another omitted-but-understood word.


kareru ta ni
ouru hitsuchi no
ho ni idenu wa
yo o imasara ni
aki hatenu to ka

A poem from the poetry contest at the house of Prince Koresada.

    The dew that settles
on the temporary hut
    guarding mountain fields
in autumn are the teardrops
of the inaôse birds.

—9 September 2012

Original by Mibu no Tadamine. Next topic: harvest. Makeshift shelters were erected near rice fields as the grain ripened, where guards could shoo birds and other critters away full-time. For the inaoosedori, see #208, and compare the avian weeping of #258. That kari, here "temporary," can mean "wild goose" seems to have led to speculation that that's what an inaoosedori is, but this unlikely given they're clearly different birds in #208. Whether they're crying because the guard is keeping them from the rice or from seasonal sentiment is entirely up to you.


yamada moru
aki no kariio ni
oku tsuyu wa
inaoosedori no
namida narikeri

---L.

Written on the bank of a pond on leaves scattering.

    Colored autumn leaves
that drop off when the wind blows --
    the water's so clear,
even unscattered reflections
can be seen within the depths.

—9 September 2012

Original by Ôshikôchi no Mitsune, managing to pull off a poem more lovely than his usual, with sound, image, and syntax all pulling together -- note especially the neat implicit antithesis between fallen-and-drifting leaves and unfallen-and-reflected leaves. It's tempting to render the last line as "are seen floating in the depths," just to bring this out, but that would add a metaphor not explicitly present. Reflections were considered to be within the water, at the bottom -- thus the importance of the clearness.


kaze fukeba
otsuru momijiba
mizu kiyomi
chiranu kage sae
soko ni mietsutsu

---L.

Written on the bank of the Tatsuta River.

    If these colored leaves
had not floated upon you,
    Tatsuta River,
who could have known the coming
of autumn to your waters?

—9 September 2012

Original by Sakanoue no Korenori. Compare to the much better #118. "Coming" is another of those omitted-but-understood verbs. Although I like the effect of the inflection pileup on the second-line verb ("if (they) had not floated") -- those usually end up in the final line -- this is otherwise a thoroughly pedestrian poem, making its popularity in later anthologies all the more surprising.


momijiba no
nagarezariseba
tatsutagawa
mizu no aki o-ba
tare ka shiramashi

---L.

Written on floating autumn leaves when he crossed the Tatsuta River as he passed the mountain in Kannabi.

    Because it's autumn
who travels past the mountain
    in Kannabi, it's
to the Tatsuta River
she offers her prayer strips.

—6 September 2012

Original by Kiyohara no Fukayabu. Here kannabi is understood as the specific place, making the "mountain in/of Kannabi" Mt. Mimuro, which the Tatsuta does indeed flow past. I'm unclear on whether the offerings are made "in" or "to" the river -- ni can indicate either a location or an indirect object. I use "she" for the season to identify it, as in #298, with the goddess Tatsutahime.


kannabi no
yama o sugiyuku
aki nareba
tatsutagawa ni zo
nusa wa tamukuru

---L.

An autumn poem.

    Because the goddess
Tatsutahime makes offerings
    for a safe journey,
the leaves of the autumn trees
scatter as her prayer strips.

—27 August 2012

Original by Prince Kanemi. Tatsutahime, the goddess of autumn, gives offerings of nusa, strips of cloth or paper in five colors, to the guardians of the roads as she departs into the west. "For a safe journey" is a gloss incorporated into the text. Sequence-wise, her departure marks the ending of autumn.


tatsutahime
tamukuru kami no
areba koso
aki no ko no ha no
nusa to chirurame

---L.

(from the same contest)

    When in autumn
I go by Mt. Mimuro,
    sacred to the gods,
I've the feeling of donning
a robe cut from rich brocade.

—20 August 2012

Original by Mibu no Tadamine. Another variation on a standard conceit from Tadamine, more successful than many of his. Same kannabi and mimuro as #284, though here the syntax makes it harder to read both as generic attributes. Pivot-word: tachikiru is "put on" and "cut up" -- jointing up the syntax requires supplying the implied clothing, here "robe." "Rich" is interpretive, added in part to reproduce the alliteration of the last line.


kannabi no
mimuro no yama o
aki yukeba
nishiki tachikiru
kokochi koso sure

---L.

(for the same screen)

    Unheard of even
in the age of the awesome gods
    -- with the autumn leaves
Tatsuta River tie-dyes
its waters Chinese crimson.

—30(?) December 2009, rev'd May-August 2012

Original by Ariwara no Narihira. Previously posted as Hyakunin Isshu #17 with slight changes since. There was a type of red brocade from Szechuan admired in Japan. The leaves are interpolated from the (carried over) headnote, and in normal sentence order, the first two lines would go last.


chihayaburu
kami yo mo kikazu
tatsutagawa
karakurenai ni
mizu kukuru to wa

---L.