Zōki-hōshi shū 5

I stayed by the beach at Fukiage. The moon was fair in the extreme, and the beach was a place where it was said that heavenly beings would often descend to and make merry. Truly, it was a fair place, indeed! That night, the sky was heart-rendingly moving, and as the night wore on, the breeze, brushing fallen frost from the ducks’ wing-feathers, brought loneliness to the skies, while the distant cries of cranes, calling for their comrades, was so moving, my words fail to express it. Birds other than these flocked, calling from the sandbars and even my insensitive and unfeeling self was moved beyond measure.

をとめごが天の羽衣ひきつれてむべもふけ井の浦におるらん

otomego ga
ama no hagoromo
hikitsurete
mube mo fukehi no
ura ni oruran
Heaven’s maidens’
Feathered robes,
Drawn up by
The gusts at Fukehi
Beach when they rest there.

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