One Thousand Summers

So the flower has wilted during the long spring rains, just as my beauty has faded during my forlorn years in this world.

Composed on falling snow − Ki no Tsurayuki 紀貫之   Enshrouded in mists trees come into bud, for spring snow falls, flowers scatter even in villages where no flower blooms  yet .

In order for us to find our way home, the plum blossoms still smell the same.

Presently, the boat passed the Uda pine woods. It was impossible to imagine how many trees might be standing there, or how many thousands of years they might have lived. The waves came up to their roots, and cranes flew back and forth among the branches. Too deeply moved to admire the spectacle in silence, one passenger composed a poem that went something like this:

The Naniwazu poem is from the beginning of a reign. [When the Ōsasagi Emperor was a prince in Naniwa, he and the crown prince kept ceding the title and not taking the throne for three years. Because of this, a man named Wani was concerned and respectfully offered a poem. It shall be said that the flowers are plum blossoms.] <...>