saki sakazu yoso nite mo mimu yamazakura mine no shirakumo tachi na kakushi so
Whether they blossom, or blossom not In the distance would I gaze Upon the mountain cherries, so O, clouds of white around the peaks, Do not rise to conceal them!
shirakumo no tatsu ka to miyuru sakurabana yama no ma mo naku chiri ya kauran
‘Have clouds, so white, Arisen?’ I wonder, beholding Cherry blossom, but Might the mountains, so swiftly, With their scattering, change?
14
[i] This poem is included in Shūishū (I: 38), as an anonymous poem with the headnote ‘From a palace poetry match held in Tenryaku 9’. It is also included in Shūishō (I: 23) as an anonymous poem with the headnote ‘From a palace poetry match held on the 29th day of the Third Month, Tenryaku 9’.
Written on the edge of a folding screen by a painting of geese flying in the clouds, when His Majesty ordered a celebration for the Junior Principal Handmaid.
白雲の中にまがひてゆく雁もこゑはかくれぬ物にざりける
shirakumo no naka ni magaite yuku kari mo koe wa kakurenu mono ni zarikeru
Within the clouds, so white, Entangled Goes a goose, Unable to conceal his cry With anything at all!
shirakumo o kokoronashi to mo iihateji aki no tsuki oba kakusazarikeri
That clouds of white Lack sensitivity, Surely, one cannot say, for The autumn moon They have not hidden.
Suketaka 71
Right
わきてしもをしまざらまし照る月の秋より後もくまなかりせば
wakiteshi mo oshimazaramashi teru tsuki no aki yori nochi mo kumanakariseba
Not at all Would I regret The shining of the moon, if After autumn, too It were made unclouded…
The Lay Priest Master 72
The Left sounds as if, in autumn in general clouds did not trail across the moon. It really does put me in mind of the preface to the Ancient and Modern collection, where it says that Kisen’s poetry is like ‘gazing at the moon in autumn when, just before dawn, it is covered with cloud’! As for the Right, it sounds as if whatever the season the moon is dark after autumn, but there are plenty of poems where you can ‘indeed see the moon in autumn’, and thus this is like blowing on someone’s hair to find a scab! These both seem of about the same quality.
