In his judgement Shunzei is referring to the famous incident in The Tale of Genji where the hero, while waiting for the gate of his wet-nurse’s house to be opened, looks out from his carriage and sees some flowers blooming on the fence of the house next door. He smiles and says, ‘Distant strangers,’ to himself. One of his bodyguards, overhearing then identifies the flowers for him.
As a lay poet composing poetry since early childhood, and now a retired octogenarian educator still composing poetry as a hobby, I recently posted online on poetry.com entitled ‘A Senryu Tale of Genji’ based lightly on the classical eleventh century masterpiece work of Murasaki Shikibu. My senryu composition consists of one hundred stanzas and was composed, influenced by my professional background and studies in sociology, linguistics and Jungian analytical psychology; and my love for Asian culture, art, and literature, influenced by my marriage of more than sixty years to an Asian woman of Myanmar in Southeast Asia. Th Tale of Genji appeals to me on several levels as a tale of human love, passion, desire, successes and failures.