KKS XIX: 1020

A poem from the Poetry Contest held by the Empress Dowager during the reign of the Kanpyō emperor.

秋風にほころびぬらし藤袴つづりさせてふきりぎりすなく

akikaze ni
Fokorobinurasi
Fudibakama
tudurisasete teFu
kirigirisu naku
With the autumn breeze
Seem to have bloomed and twined
The asters
Bound together by the rasping
Crickets’ cries.[1]

Ariwara no Muneyana


[1] This poem is composed around a dual wordplay, which I have not been able to closely replicate in the translation. Hokorobu is simultaneously both ‘bloom fully’ and ‘thread (a needle)’ while tsuzuru is both ‘sew together’ and an onomatopoeic representation of the sound that a cricket makes.

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