One Thousand Summers

A long time ago, what was a man thinking, when he composed this?

Nights of love unforgotten in mourning tears of a curious hue.

The poem is included in Fujiwara no Teika’s  藤原定家  (1162–1241) personal collection  Shūi Gusō  拾遺愚草 (Gleanings of Worthless Weeds), where it is found among the  twenty poems ordered by the Retired Emperor on the twelfth month of the second year (1212) of Kenryaku 建暦 (1211–1213) , as one of  five poems on miscellaneous topics :

“ Kaguya-hime said,  ‘ All I can think is that I should certainly regret it if, in spite of my unattractive looks, I married someone without being sure of the depth of his feelings, and he then proved to be fickle. However grand a person he may be, I should not wish to marry him unless I were sure he was sincere. ’ ”

When winds blow oak leaves in the twilight, the only sign of summer is the ritual purification in the waters.

Minister of the Right, who rebuilt the ruins of Former Middle Counselor Teika’s house in Saga, would sometimes go there and on twentieth of eight month, on death anniversary of Lord Teika, he ordered Buddhist services and invited to compose poems. Recalling autumn...

May I find the moon somewhere in the clouds, before this short summer night fully breaks.*

"Taichiro hailed a taxi in front of the tea house, and Keiko got in with him. He remained silent as they drove across the city out to the Nisonin Temple in Saga. Keiko was silent too, except for asking if she could open the window all the way. But she  p ut her hand on his, fondling it gently with her index finger. Her smooth hand was a little damp. The main gate of the Nisonin Temple was said to have been brought from Hideyoshi’s Fushimi Castle in the early seventeenth century. It had the imposing air of a great castle gate. Keiko remarked that they seemed to be in for another hot day. ‘This is my first time here,’ she said. ‘I’ve done a little research on Fujiwara Teika,’ Taichiro told her. As he climbed the stone steps to the gate he looked around and saw the hem of her kimono rippling as she followed nimbly after him. ‘We know Teika had a villa on Mt Ogura called the “Pavilion of the Autumn Rain”, but people claim three different sites for it. You can’t tell which it really wa...

“ Time passed. But time flows in many streams. Live a river, an inner stream of time will flow rapidly at some places and sluggishly at others, or perhaps even stand hopelessly stagnant. Cosmic time is the same for everyone, but human time differs with each person. Time flows in the same way for all human beings; every human being flows through time in a different way. As Otoko approached forty she wondered if the fact that Oki remained within her meant that this stream of time was stagnant, rather than flowing. Or had her image of him flowed along with her through time, like a flower drifting down a river? How she drifted along in his stream of time she did not know. Although he could not have forgotten her, time would at least have flowed differently for him. Even if two people were lovers, their streams of time would never be the same. . . ”   ―  Yasunari Kawabata, Beauty and Sadness   Kawabata Yasunari  川端康成  (1899−1972) 美しさと哀しみと Utsukushisa to kanashim...

“ ...he had always read  The Tale of Genji  in the small type of modern editions, but when he came across it in a handsome old block-printed edition it made an entirely different impression on him. What had it been like when they read it in those beautiful flowing manuscripts of the age of the Heian Court? A thousand years ago  The Tale of Genji  was a modern novel. It could never be read that way again, no matter how far  Genji  studies progressed. Still, the old edition gave a more intense pleasure than a modern one. Doubtless the same would be true of Heian poetry.”   ―  Yasunari  Kawabata ,  Beauty and Sadness   Kawabata Yasunari  川端康成  (1899−1972) 美しさと哀しみと  Utsukushisa to kanashimi to Translated by Howard S. Hibbett (1920 −2019)

In the  quiet  spring sunlight cherry’s new blossoms in a whirlwind of petals descend. *  

Although I never knew the ways of letters, Buddhist Novice (Renshō) has carefully insisted that I write the poem cartouches  for sliding doors of Saga Chūin. Even though they are awfully unsightly, written half-heartedly, I am sending them away. From the ancient times, a poem from every poet, from Emperor Tenji ( 1 )  to Ietaka ( 2 )  and Masatsune ( 3 ) .

After many, many years, eight-fold cherries of the capital in Nara, now bloom inside the nine-fold palace.*

My fear is that you will forget your promise to never forget me, so I would prefer to die now while I am still happy. 

Composed as one of fifty poems on flowers at the house of Goky ōgoku Regent

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.] <...>