geese | Waka Poetry

I sent this to the residence of someone, who had gone to a distant province, when they had said they’d return around the Eighth Month and there had been no sign of them by the Ninth.

こむとしもたのめぬうはの空にだに秋風ふけばかりはきにけり

komu to shimo
tanomenu uwa no
sora ni dani
akikaze fukeba
kari wa kinikeri

That they would come, even I
Do not expect of the heights of
The heavens, but
When the autumn wind has blown,
The geese have arrived.[i]

605

[i] See: Love carried on the wind. きくやいかにうはのそらなる風だにもまつにおとするならひありとは kiku ya ika ni / uwa no sora naru / kaze dani mo / matsu ni otosuru / narai ari to wa ‘Do you hear it? Well? / From the heavens’ heights / Even the wind, / To come whispering among the pines / Has grown accustomed.’ Kunaikyō (Shinkokinshū XIII: 1199); and: A poem from the poetry competition at Prince Koresada’s house. 秋風にはつかりがねぞきこゆなるたがたまづさをかけてきつらむ akikaze ni / hatsukari ga ne zo / kikoyunaru / ta ga tamazusa o / kaketekitsuran ‘On the autumn wind / Come the first goose cries. / I hear them; / Whose letters / Do they bring, I wonder?’ Ki no Tomonori (Kokinshū IV: 207)

Round Seven

Left (Tie)

わがさかりやよいづかたへゆきにけむしらぬおきなにみをばゆづりて

wa ga sakari
yayo izukata e
yukinikemu
shiranu okina ni
mi oba yuzurite

My glory days,
O, where have they
Gone?
An unfamiliar old man
Has taken my place…

Lord Kiyosuke
113

Right

いかなればわがひとつらのかかるらむうらやましきはあきのかりがね

ika nareba
wa ga hitotsura no
kakaruramu
urayamashiki wa
aki no kari ga ne

What has happened, that
My brothers, one and all,
Should go so far?
How I envy
The cries of autumn geese…

Lord Sanetsuna
114

Both of these poems of the Left and Right are, once again, suited to their poets. The Left appears to have a charming conception, looking back on more prosperous times which have now gone—just as anyone would. This is certainly something to resent and yet, in his glory days he was a man of high renown, or someone with great responsibilities among lower officialdom, or even in the Inner Palace Guards or Great Council of State—to hear a man recollecting this and asking ‘where have my glory days gone’—speaking of such things sounds charming, in the end. Truly charming. The poem of the Right finds fault with ‘What has happened, that /My brothers, one and all’ and the poet says ‘How I envy / The cries of autumn geese’. The line of geese in the autumn appears unmistakably to refer to the ordering of brothers—perhaps that order has been disrupted? If so, this, too, is extremely charming. To the extent that these, too, express the writer’s troubles, for the moment, I make them a tie.