yuki furite ato wa hakanaku taenu tomo koshi no yamamichi yamazu kayowan
In the falling snow Your tracks but briefly Will endure, yet The mountain paths of Koshi Would I endlessly traverse.[i]
586
[i] See: Composed to send off Ōe no Chifuru when he went to Koshi. 君がゆくこしのしら山しらねども雪のまにまにあとはたづねむ kimi ga yuku / koshi no shirayama / shiranedomo / yuki no manimani / ato wa tazunemu ‘My Lord, you go / To the mountains, so white, of Koshi— / I know them not, yet / While the snow endures / Would I seek your trail.’ Lord Fujiwara no Kanesuke (Kokinshū VIII: 391)
Around the Ninth Month, when I had gone to stay at the palace for a certain reason, and I heard someone’s voice from the adjoining chamber, wrote this on the edge of my mat and had it left there.
うきよには嵐の風にさそはれてこしやまがはに袖もぬらしつ
ukiyo ni wa arashi no kaze ni sasowarete koshiyamagawa ni sode mo nurashitsu
In this world of sorrows The storming wind Has invited me, and Koshi Mountain’s torrents Have soaked my sleeves.
