Commentary on Contemporary Tanka

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Commentary on Contemporary Tanka

河内裕二
Principal Writer, Japan Romanticism Academia

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Analysis and Explanation of Reiwa Tanka

Commentary on Contemporary Tanka

河内裕二
Principal Writer, Japan Romanticism Academia

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Introduction — Passing on Tanka Culture

No genre conveys Japanese hearts as tanka does. Far from fading, many poems collected in the Manyoshu more than twelve hundred years ago still shine dazzlingly and move us. Using beautiful, richly expressive Japanese, we place our feelings in thirty-one characters. Whether this tanka culture continues another thousand years depends not simply on the survival of the habit of composing, but on our ability to keep producing and preserving excellent poems. Both composition and criticism are necessary.

I am responsible for tanka research at the Japan Romanticism Academia as part of its study of Japanese culture. This collection analyzes and explains the results of the Academia's continuing poetry gatherings.

I interpret for myself the poets' intentions and feelings embodied in thirty-one characters, while asking the authors directly about questions that arise, to deepen my understanding. By comparing their works with earlier poetry and considering vocabulary and rhetoric, I analyze them from multiple perspectives and explain their worlds.

I hope this will help students on the creative-writing course learn romantic tanka, one of Japan's traditions, by composing it themselves.

September 10, Reiwa 4 (2022)
河内裕二 — Principal Writer, Japan Romanticism Academia

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Contents

1. Waiting for Spring — 5
2. Enveloped in the Fragrance of Flowers — 10
3. At the Time of Grain Rain — 16
4. Hearts Soothed by Fresh Greenery — 22
5. Toward the Sky — 28
6. Various Partings — 32
7. The Coming of Autumn — 36
8. A Gentle Gaze — 40
9. Greeting the New Year amid the Pandemic — 44
10. When Snow Turns to Rain — 50
11. Plum Blossoms Bloom and Scatter — 55
12. In a World Whose Future We Cannot See — 61
13. The Cherry Blossoms Too Have Changed — 65
14. Memories Are Always Vivid — 69

References — 73

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1. Waiting for Spring

お水取り越えねば春は来ぬといふ
母の冬里思へば幾歳　成秋

The reference to Omizutori tells us that the “winter village” is Nara. The author, Professor Seishu Hamano, says his mother came from Nara and often said, “Spring will not come until Omizutori is over.” Hearing that Nara is a basin with penetrating winter cold, I understood, though I do not know Nara in winter. Neither 「古里」 nor 「故郷」 would convey the cold. The feeling in 「思へば幾歳」—of having neglected his mother's birthplace for so long and being sorry—is born of deep love for her. Compare a poem by 中村憲吉.

時雨して奈良はさむけれ御水取
なほ二月堂に行を終らざる　憲吉

This too says that spring will not come until Omizutori ends, but it is a little lonely without feelings for a mother. Compared with Professor Hamano's poem, it is realistic description.

The winter home of 濱野成秋's mother is Kume, famous for the tale of the immortal 久米仙人. As a settlement of great antiquity even within Nara, it has a special appeal.

初春に涙腺ゆるむ孫の書く
はねだしそうな「新たな決意」　由良子

Seeing the expansive characters in her grandchild's calligraphy brought involuntary tears. 由良子 says, “These days, even something like this sets my tear ducts going.” It is evidence of happiness: a grandchild growing up vigorously and a grandmother watching warmly. It warms the reader too. The wording 「はねだしそうな」 is superb.

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「歩いてる？」娘に訊かれ生返事
愛犬逝きて運動不足　光枝

Her evasion with a noncommittal answer to her daughter's question is charming, but makes the loneliness of losing her beloved dog felt all the more. Until the dog died last year, walks were a daily routine. One can picture the dog, unable to wait for its walk, prompting her at the appointed time each day. 若山牧水 also wrote this:

枯草にわが寝て居ればあそばむと
来て顔のぞき眼をのぞく犬　牧水

I do not keep a dog, but when I watch those who do, the dog seems to be in charge.

アネモネは信仰の花花言葉
「信じ従ふ」ラジオより聞く　尚道

尚道 explains that the Bible's words “Look at the wildflowers” are said to refer to anemones. A radio program introduces each day's flower and its meaning, and its anemone day gave rise to this poem. It is a poem distinctive to its Christian author. Looking it up, I found that red anemones apparently symbolize Christ's Passion. In Greek mythology, the blood of Adonis, loved by Aphrodite, is said to have become anemones. This poem struck me as prosaic.

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西の空父母の顔あり悔ゆるのみ
八十路往く身に老いのしかかる　艶子

Looking back on life, she must now acutely feel how important her parents were, with gratitude and regret that she did not do more for them. She comes from Irifune in Misaki and is a childhood friend of 由良子. According to 由良子, her father served in the prefectural assembly and her mother worked hard while supporting him; perhaps those are the figures she recalls. “The western sky” probably means the Western Pure Land. A leading explanation for locating the Pure Land in the west is that the sun and moon both finally set there, so everything was thought to return west in the end. Seeing a beautiful sunset, would not anyone imagine the Pure Land beyond it?

冬夕焼赤く染めたる故郷の
夕べの雲はどこへ向かふや　裕二

This is my poem. I was asked where its scene takes place. Where is the poet? Has he returned home to compose it, or is he thinking of home? Likewise, is the sunset in his hometown or where he now lives? Both interpretations are possible. For a moment I recalled the debate over whether 室生犀星's poem beginning 「ふるさとは遠きにありて思ふもの」 was written at home. As author, I deliberately wrote so readers could interpret it either way. Everyone has an individual image of the setting sun and sunset glow. The sunsets I see in Tokyo, where I now live, are orange; people in Miura say theirs are deep red. 「夕焼け小焼け」 depicts the scene in Ongata, Hachioji, but it can no longer be seen there. Professor Hamano said that, watching the sun set in Miura recently, he thought one could still see the sunset of that song—

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—there. According to a Miura resident, the sun setting over Moroiso Bay is supremely beautiful.

Words for a winter sunset include 「冬夕焼」「寒夕焼」「冬茜」「寒茜」. I hesitated between 「冬夕焼」 and 「冬茜」 for the opening phrase, initially considering the latter for its clean sequence of sounds. The word “akane” brings to mind a famous Manyoshu poem by 額田王.

あかねさす紫野行き標野行き
野守は見ずや君が袖振る　額田王

I was told that one interpretation places this scene in moonlight, so “akane” does not always signify sunset. I chose 「冬夕焼」 partly because 「冬茜」 is little used and might be hard to understand.

愛すれど猫は巧みに家を出で
畑や山をグルグル回る　良江

The cat sometimes seizes an opportunity to escape, and each time its owner searches everywhere, at its mercy. The other day she searched for five hours. The somewhat comic latter half, 「畑や山をグルグル回る」, aptly conveys the cat's freewheeling behavior, wholly indifferent to its owner, and the impression that it is somehow making a fool of people. Infuriating, but cat lovers must find it irresistible.

いにしえの塚の遺れる丘に立ち
時の動きを中宙に視ゆ　弘子

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The author rents a field on a hill with a fine view in Miura, near the Thirteen Mounds. She heard that these mark the graves of thirteen retainers of 三浦道寸, who died there watching Arai Castle burn. The castle fell in 1516; defeated by the Hojo, the Miura clan perished. The sky she saw from the hill of the mounds was very beautiful. Surely the sky seen by the retainers who took their lives was beautiful too. The sky does not change, but time does: that feeling gave rise to this poem.

”推し“などと粋な言葉を使われて
吾人はたじろぎ若者を見る　和子

The poem refers to 宇佐美りん's 『推し、燃ゆ』 (2020), winner of the 164th Akutagawa Prize. 宇佐美 is currently a twenty-one-year-old university student. I heard that this poet is ninety-one, so the age gap alone is substantial. When young people say “oshi,” they often mean an idol they support: a considerable widening of meaning. Yet it may be more appropriate to understand it as an abbreviation of “the idol I most recommend.” In dictionary terms, “oshi” means one's top recommendation, so hearing it should hardly cause one to recoil. Of the title's two words, “moyu” seems harder to understand than “oshi.” It means to become the subject of an online firestorm. Since the poem adds 「など」 after “oshi,” perhaps she recoiled at the entire expression 「推し、燃ゆ」. The novel's protagonist is said to be a high-school girl who devotes herself wholeheartedly to supporting her favorite idol. With the same word 「燃ゆ」, 牧水 has this poem:

真昼日のひかり青きに燃えさかる
炎か哀しわが若さ燃ゆ　牧水

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2. Enveloped in the Fragrance of Flowers

コロナ禍で自粛の日々も桜咲き
鶯鳴きて暫しの癒し　光枝

The author lives amid abundant nature. At this time of year, she says, she hears bush warblers singing as she looks at cherry blossoms near her home. Even when the pandemic changes life into one of requested restraint, nature's workings remain the same. In spring, trees bud and birds sing. Let us find healing and peace in the beauty of nature close at hand. This is probably her message to a society that has become constrained and restless during the pandemic.

Among birds, the bush warbler's voice is particularly beautiful and memorable. In appearance, it is the white-eye that is more “warbler green”; bush warblers are rather brownish. White-eyes for looking at, bush warblers for listening to. Professor Hamano told me an interesting story about white-eyes: a custom he heard of in Ome, Tokyo, called “catching white-eyes.” A visitor enters someone's garden saying, “Please let me catch white-eyes,” and the lady of the house welcomes him to the veranda and serves tea. After a while, a daughter of marriageable age emerges to greet him. This is actually an inquiry about marriage. When he presents himself as a white-eye catcher, the family understands and responds accordingly. It is a custom distinctive to Ome, famous for plum blossoms. There is something charming about plum flowers; white-eyes certainly suit them. What bird suits cherry blossoms? If it is cherry blossoms and bush warblers, there is this poem by 在原業平:

世の中に絶えて桜のなかりせば
春の心はのどけからまし　在原業平

良寛 made an allusive variation on this famous cherry-blossom poem:

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鶯のたえてこの世になかりせば
春の心はいかにかあらまし　良寛

潮風とお湯の温度が絶妙と
露天に入る桜と共に　由良子

Cherry petals float in an outdoor bath overlooking the sea; the sea breeze and water temperature are exquisite. Told that much, everyone wants to go immediately. The author enjoyed an outdoor bath at a hot-spring hotel in Aburatsubo. Spring was present in name only: the air cold, the bath hot. The great cherry tree before her had begun to scatter. Bathing with the sea ahead was wonderful, and the poem records that actual experience.

春は惜し薨る師の影時移り
桜吹雪の日和も疎まし　成秋

Professor Seishu Hamano wrote this after losing two beloved teachers and an elementary-school classmate this spring. Spring recalls the priest 西行's poem: if he must die, let it be beneath flowers in bloom. Yet even in spring, losing so many dear people at once is unbearable. It is not only cherry blossoms that spring scatters, Professor Hamano said quietly.

願はくは花の下にて春死なむ
そのきさらぎの望月のころ　西行

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Time moves on from happy memories with one's teacher, until the day comes to join one's hands before the teacher's lifeless form. And in spring. When so many die, even the sight of cherry blossoms cannot make the day seem fine. The usual characters for “mimakaru,” to pass away, are 「身罷る」, but replacing the lower part of 「夢」 with 「死」 also yields that reading. Looking it up, I found 「薨去」, a term used for the deaths of members of the imperial family and others. Not 「身罷る」 but 「薨る」: a single character expresses how deeply Professor Hamano revered his teachers.

病む友の恢復願ひ宮参り
梅の匂ひのけふは柔らか　裕二

Hearing that an acquaintance was ill and undergoing treatment, I visited a shrine to pray for a complete recovery and a return to ordinary life as soon as possible. I composed this then. For recovery from illness, 「快復」 is used, but this acquaintance was active and always busy. Wanting not only the illness to heal but that active way of life to return, I chose 「恢復」.

枇杷の花、梅の花へとくる野鳥
しばらく群れて直ぐに飛び立つ　良江

Miura has many wild birds. The author says a kite's behavior struck her the other day. A large tree in the hills near her home held a kite's nest. When it was being felled, a kite flew at the workers, as though protesting. Small kites were also flying in the hills; perhaps they had been born and fledged in that tree. I did not ask why the tree was cut down, but where did the kite that lost its nest go? The latter part, 「しばらく群れて直ぐに飛び立つ」, is exactly right. Birds are present only briefly, then quickly disappear. Haiku is often called sketching from life—

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—but careful observation of nature and things is fundamental to tanka too. An example of a sketch-from-life tanka is this poem by 正岡子規:

瓶にさす藤の花ぶさみじかれば
たゝみの上にとゞかざりけり　子規

It seems a casual, objective description. But readers who know that 子規 lay ill in his final years will consider where the flowers are being viewed from, locating his gaze until even the poet, unpictured in the poem, comes into view. The description itself may also seem somehow the voice of his heart. A fine sketch-from-life poem tells much.

あの人もこの人も「いい人ね」って
思える今日の元気な証拠　弘子

Recently the author began to think that tanka need not always be classical. Looking at the free poems of 俵万智 and younger poets, she too wrote without being bound to the fixed five-seven-five-seven-seven pattern. Experience tells her that when she cannot think well of others, she herself is not in particularly good condition. She made a poem of that personal barometer. Knowing oneself is difficult for everyone. Here she learns her own condition from her feelings toward others. Certainly, without room in one's heart, one cannot be kind.

上田三四二's tanka criticism 『短歌一生』 contains an essay called 「心の色」. He says a phrase he learned from the Noh text 『熊野』, 「思ひうちにあれば、色ほかにあらわる」, applies precisely to tanka. Tanka technique is nothing other than devising ways to give form to inward feeling; the quality of a work corresponds to the breath of the author's way of life at that time. The quoted phrase means that the heart's color appears in a poem. Could there be a clearer theory of tanka? It also connects to 紀貫之's words in the Japanese preface to the Kokin Wakashu—

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—“Japanese poetry takes the human heart as its seed and becomes countless leaves of words.” This poem is splendid because the heart's color comes through directly.

雨は降る舟よ動けと念じても
舟は繋がれ白秋を恋う　和子

Has she compared herself, unable to go out during the pandemic, to a boat? Her care home reportedly stands directly before Moroiso Bay, so perhaps she composed while watching boats there. There is a song with Hakushu's lyrics, 『城ヶ島の雨』. The poem includes 「雨はふるふる」 and 「舟はゆくゆく」, so one imagines she thought of Hakushu through that song. Looking it up, I found that it is a boat song composed by 梁田貞, who also worked on 「どんぐりころころ」, to a poem Hakushu wrote while living in Misaki in Taisho 2. The poem seems to express his anguish then; perhaps making it a boat song expressed a wish for a new departure of his own. A monument inscribed in Hakushu's hand now stands at the foot of Jogashima Bridge.

五十円大根二本求めると
傷ある大根一本おまけ　尚道

What an individual poem. There are many numerical expressions—fifty yen, two, one—and the only noun is daikon. Normally that would make mere explanation, yet somehow this becomes a poem. This year vegetables are abundant, but pandemic-related demand has fallen, produce will not sell and farmers are struggling. Better sell for fifty yen than throw it away. Misshapen or damaged vegetables cannot be shipped, so they are added free, I am told. As this is Miura, are they Miura daikon?

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Thinking what a bargain a big, delicious daikon is at fifty yen proves I am an outsider here. Low prices are welcome to everyone, but seeing the daikon that are the pride of one's locality dumped at giveaway prices brings sadness and poignancy. Questions and anger toward the society that makes this happen also rise quietly. All the more so when it is stated impassively, like supermarket advertising copy. The author has calculated even that effect.

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3. At the Time of Grain Rain

ゆく春の橋の上なるおぼろ月
黄砂のせいとつれないラジオ　由良子

Does not a hazy moon make one hum the school song 『朧月夜』? Its words are by 高野辰之 and music by 岡野貞一, a partnership that created splendid Japanese songs including 『故郷』『春が来た』『春の小川』. They also wrote 『日の丸の旗』, beginning 「白地に赤く日の丸染めて」. The poet too mentioned 『朧月夜』, saying it was not quite 「菜の花畠に入り日薄れ」. Looking at the moon in the night sky, she felt romantically that it was a hazy moon. Then radio news reported yellow dust in Kanto for the first time in ten years. Learning that windborne dust had veiled the moon rather spoiled the mood. A moon blurred by dry desert sand, with its somewhat barren associations, certainly feels different from one veiled in atmospheric moisture, mist or haze. Japanese people have long been captivated by the beauty of a hazy moon. The Shin Kokin Wakashu contains such a poem:

照りもせず曇りも果てぬ春の夜の
朧月夜にしくものぞなき　大江千里

Perhaps Japanese houses use shoji precisely because we love this quality of soft light. 谷崎潤一郎 wrote an essay called 『陰翳礼讃』. Japanese people do not much care for glaring brightness; they find beauty in what glows within shadow.

満人の近くの店から漂へる

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食欲そそる中華の匂ひ　光枝

A poem of casual everyday life. Near the author's home is a Chinese restaurant. At lunchtime, the delicious smell of Chinese food sometimes comes on the breeze. The opening 「満人の」 expands the poem's associations. The people running the restaurant are Chinese, but she does not know whether they come from Manchuria in the northeast. Deliberately making them Manchurian arouses interest in them. Manchuria brings to mind the South Manchuria Railway, Manchukuo, and the repatriates who risked their lives returning to Japan after the war. At times romance, at times nightmare: for Japanese people, Manchuria has a special significance unlike other Chinese place names. The children's song 『ペチカ』, with words by 北原白秋 and music by 山田耕筰, begins 「雪の降る夜は楽しいペチカ」. I had always thought it was about Russia because a pechka is a Russian stove. Yet it was originally a school song included in the 『満州唱歌集』 published in 1924, set in Manchuria at that time. Hakushu and 耕筰 went to Manchuria to create the commissioned song.

病超へ遂げし娘の記録見て
揺れる母御の心測れり　和子

The author composed this on hearing of swimmer 池江璃花子, who overcame leukemia and won at the Japanese championships. She sings of the mother's feelings, rather than 池江's own, because she herself is always concerned about her children as a mother. She cannot help considering how 池江's mother felt when her child became gravely ill. “Young mothers today may be strong-minded and absolutely determined to let their daughters win. But I find myself thinking that even if she cannot continue swimming or go to the Olympics, it is enough that she look after her body and simply be well,” she says. Having survived an age when poor food supplies and war took so many lives—

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—her words “It is enough simply to be well” carry weight. Ways of thinking may differ between generations, but parents' feelings for their children do not change. The Manyoshu contains this poem:

銀も金も玉も何せむに
まされる宝子にしかめやも　山上憶良

It is one of 山上憶良's poems thinking of his children.

この世をば散りて去りたるさくらばな
実をば結ばめ春は来ずとも　成秋

A poem by Professor Seishu Hamano, expressing his feelings through cherry blossoms. The common Somei-yoshino has beautiful flowers but bears no fruit. If he too scatters like the blossoms, will that be the end? Even if he scatters and spring does not return, he wants something to bear fruit and remain for the next generation. He says that, looking back on his work and other efforts, he felt they had not borne much fruit, and this poem emerged. However different our paths, do we not all feel the same? The Shin Kokin Wakashu includes a cherry-blossom poem by 後徳大寺左大臣:

はかなさをほかにもいはじ桜花
咲きては散りぬあはれ世の中　後徳大寺左大臣

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It says the world's transience can be likened to nothing but cherry blossoms, and shares something with Professor Hamano's poem.

だんボール入りし柔らか春キャベツ
家族総出の収穫すすむ　良江

Skillful description brings the scene vividly to mind. Miura has many cabbage fields, and scenes like this are common in spring. Cabbages are also harvested in summer, but apparently it is in spring that the whole family joins in—perhaps because speed is required. Soft, sweet spring cabbages must of course be delicious when freshly picked.

相模湾一望にして春霞
湯舟につかり友と語らむ　艶子

She composed this after enjoying a visit to Atami with a friend and feeling happy. The scene is clear, almost like a painting, with no wasted description. One can almost hear the conversation. The proper name Sagami Bay, specifying a real place, works well here. It gives reality to the poem while allowing readers who know the area to imagine what can be seen at sea—Izu Oshima, the Izu Peninsula or the Miura Peninsula—which is another pleasure.

花時に自粛求むる時の疫に
太子偲びて現在を生きゆく　裕二

This year marks the fourteen-hundredth anniversary of Prince Shotoku's death. A memorial service was held at Horyuji in Nara in early April. It was a once-in-a-century milestone, but because of the novel coronavirus—

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—the service was reduced in scale and held with infection-prevention measures. Seeing it on the news, I composed this poem. Though the cherry blossoms were beautiful, we could not go blossom-viewing for a second year. Avoiding contact and crowds made even meeting others difficult. How long would this life continue? Japan is said to be unusual in leaving restrictions to people's voluntary restraint and still achieving a degree of limitation. One might simply call it national character, but why did it become so? Prince Shotoku's Seventeen-Article Constitution opens with “Harmony is to be valued.” Have Japanese people inherited that spirit down to the present? Shotoku is said to have died of an epidemic then raging, at exactly my present age. Across fourteen hundred years, we must listen again to his teaching and survive the pandemic. Such feelings prompted the poem.

夫とゆく揃いのマスクでコロナ禍を
浮世さだむや総合病院　弘子

The opening makes one imagine an affectionate couple setting off on a trip. Reaching the final part, we realize they are going to hospital together, and tension rises abruptly. An illness had recently been found in her husband, and they went to hospital as a couple. It is pleasing that they can go together, but their destination is a hospital, during a pandemic. Both his illness and the coronavirus are causes for worry. The conclusion, making a large general hospital determine this uncertain world, is masterly.

自衛隊訓練生はひたすらに
パドル動かす春の潮に　尚道

The Ground Self-Defense Force's High Technical School is at Takeyama garrison, gathering students from all over Japan away from their parents. At this time of year, they are often seen canoeing in Nagai Bay before the school. They paddle desperately forward, but differences in arm strength—

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—show plainly. New students still retaining an innocent air undergo severe training and, by graduation, grow strong in body and mind, leaving as capable Self-Defense personnel. Since they are paid while at school, discipline and training are correspondingly strict. This poem conveys that severity. The combination is excellent: 「春の潮」 suggests a warm sea where everyone plays leisurely, while 「ひたすらにパドル動かす」 expresses earnest effort in rigorous training in just such a place. One pictures young people at an age when they long to play, devoting themselves stoically to training while glancing at others enjoying themselves.

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4. Hearts Soothed by Fresh Greenery

筍を煮て食みしあと楽しみは
皮で梅干しはさんでしゃぶる　光枝

In bamboo-shoot season, the author boils and eats the flesh, washes the peeled skins carefully and encloses a pickled plum inside to suck. It is something of a custom, familiar to many older people from Miura. The flavor is lightly salty. In the days when there were no sweets, this served as one. It was a pleasure to see the plum dye the skin a beautiful red; even now she sometimes enjoys this old, nostalgic treat after eating bamboo shoots. Bamboo skin has preservative properties and is used to wrap food. Combining it with preserved plums as a children's snack must reflect the wisdom of earlier generations. Unfortunately I do not know this pleasure, but hearing that the plum's color spreads and reddens the skin adds a red image to the poem, enriching its colors.

ガン癒えし八十路の弟は入院を
「独房のよう」春一ばん吹く　由良子

The author is one of seven siblings: six women and a single brother in the middle. He was the family's linchpin, but developed cancer last year and repeatedly entered and left hospital. All his siblings were deeply worried and prayed for recovery as soon as possible. He said the hardship of hospitalization was like being in solitary confinement. Saying “I cannot die yet,” their dear brother endured painful treatment and recovered around the time the first spring gale blew. She felt profoundly thankful and wrote this poem to preserve that feeling somehow. Her affection for him comes through powerfully.

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春霞ピンクに染まる夕富士は
羞じらいながら楚々と佇む　和子

Mount Fuji is visible from the home where the poet lives. Looking several times a day, she sees a different Fuji each time: not only its color but even its apparent size changes. Sometimes powerful and majestic, sometimes slender and beautiful like a woman in kimono. This poem describes the latter, feminine Fuji. Portraying the mountain as a maiden, pink and modestly standing, reveals her distinctive sensibility. Fuji recalls 山部赤人's Hyakunin Isshu poem, whose original appears in the Manyoshu:

田児の浦ゆうち出てて見れば真白にぞ
不尽の高嶺に雪は降りける　山部赤人

It directly sings of majestic Fuji appearing before the poet. Compared with this original, the Hyakunin Isshu version is somewhat softer and more dreamlike.

楠の木よ三百年の時重ね
若葉豊かに朝日輝く　艶子

A great camphor tree, three hundred years old, grows next to the author's home. She has lived immediately beside it for fifteen years; including before that, she has spent forty years seeing it daily. Three hundred years sounds very old, but perhaps that is a human standard. To the tree itself, it may still seem early days.

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The final phrase, 「若葉豊かに朝日輝く」, conveys vitality undiminished after three hundred years and suggests a mysterious presence. Many of Japan's giant trees are camphors. Since giant trees often become objects of worship, camphor trees may be called special trees for Japanese people. This tree will continue quietly watching over the poet.

野の畑に作りし苺熟す頃
里山の主我を先超す　弘子

The poet currently grows strawberries in her vegetable garden. Looking forward to the fruit ripening, she found that something ate it before she could harvest. Paw-pad-like prints remained on the plastic sheet over the field. She suspects a raccoon dog, but has never seen it and does not know. Infuriatingly, it chooses the red, ripe berries. Until she surrounded the field securely with netting, the strawberries kept being eaten, leaving her deeply frustrated. The latter part conveys that her opponent is one step ahead: she shows understanding for the animal, yet expresses unresolved frustration and anger skillfully. It seems rather charming to me, but that is because my strawberries are not being eaten.

うばたまの闇に潜みて鳴くかはづ
今宵ふたたび春雨のふる　裕二

A poem I wrote about ordinary life. Beginning with 「うばたまの闇」 prevents a visual image from expanding; the reader's attention concentrates on sound, with only the frogs' voices ringing out. Rain falls too, but it is quiet spring rain. Only the frogs' calls spread through ear and heart. I wanted a poem whose sound could be heard in reading.

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「うばたまの」 is a pillow word qualifying black things such as night, darkness and dreams; 「ぬばたまの」 serves the same function. The black seeds of the leopard lily are called “ubatama” or “mubatama,” written 「烏羽玉」 and 「射千玉」 respectively. Either could have been used as a pillow word, but I chose “ubatama” because of the impression its written characters give and because fewer poems use it than “nubatama.” “Nubatama no” recalls this poem by 斎藤茂吉:

ぬば玉のふくる夜床に目ざむれば
をなご狂の歌ふがきこゆ　茂吉

Professor Hamano explained the scene: the woman singing contracted syphilis while working in an unofficial pleasure district; the infection reached her brain and she lost her sanity. In the pleasure quarter, the poet listens to her song in the night beside the woman sharing his bed. 茂吉 also wrote a poem featuring frogs:

死に近き母に添寝のしんしんと
遠田のかはづ天に聞ゆる　茂吉

ブロッコリー好める家猫感知して
湯がける時よりすでに待ちをり　良江

To someone who keeps no animals, pet owners seem very close to them. Even when both poems depict animals, the frog calling somewhere in my poem and the cat waiting behind the scenes here differ clearly in physical and psychological distance. Pet owners also seem to understand their animals' feelings.

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Cats are generally thought to like fish and meat; this was my first hearing of one liking broccoli. A cat waiting for freshly boiled broccoli is a unique setting.

パソコンのクリック一つで人生を
変えられるなら既に初夏　尚道

A computer lets us do many things; with a click, scenes change one after another. The poet expresses a wish to change life in the same way. Moving through the world on the screen, he suddenly realizes it is early summer. Time passes quickly, as in Urashima Taro. Computers have transformed life. Communication has changed too, with most exchanges now online through email and social media. The sense of speed differs from the past: a message arrives instantly even on the opposite side of the earth. I feel nostalgic for waiting for the post. The coronavirus encouraged remote work unrestricted by location, accelerating the move of society online. Will opportunities to gather and talk face-to-face diminish?

田の里に住ひし父母の影遠く
いま帰る身に降る蟬しぐれ　成秋

The opening 「父母の影遠く」 suggests many years have passed since his parents died. In the latter half, returning and the shower of cicada voices evoke a visit to their graves at home during Bon. Comparing the simultaneous voices of many cicadas to a passing shower shows how expressive and beautiful Japanese is. The image of that shower falling upon the body is superb, and combined with 「田の里」 expands both sight and sound. That phrase gives a sense of soil, bringing the cicadas—

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—to life. Cicadas first bring to my mind their lifespan. They spend years underground, then finally emerge as adults only to live a week. They cry with all their strength above ground and soon perish. Recent research says they can live around a month, but that is a scientific matter; like cherry blossoms, cicadas give us an intense impression of life. The closing 「蝉しぐれ」 leaves their voices echoing in the heart. 岡本かの子 has this poem:

鳴く蝉の命の限り鳴く声は
夏のみそらにひびき泌みけり　かの子

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5. Toward the Sky

コンビニの防犯カメラに燕の巣
親鳥ひたすら餌をはこびくる　尚道

Everyone has probably seen a swallow's nest, but surely not atop a security camera. It is most amusing that swallows casually nest on a device humans install out of suspicion toward their own species, as though laughing at us.

スーパーの入口にある貼り紙に
「トンビに注意」今日は梅雨入り　良江

She probably saw an actual notice. Kites are common in Miura, but their juxtaposition with a supermarket is unexpected and memorable. The final 「今日は梅雨入り」 turns an announcement into poetry.

夕空に生気みなぎる点描画
騎虎の勢ひむくどりの群れ　裕二

Every year at this season, flocks of starlings come to the station square in my town. Their numbers are astonishing, and they call so loudly that one cannot hear people speak. When something sends them all into flight, they wheel right and left. Like an enormous pointillist painting in motion, the sight overwhelms with its force.

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東海の益荒男成りしマスターズ
亡き夫ならばいかに思ふや　由良子

松山英樹 became the first Japanese winner of the Masters, a major golf tournament. The poet's late husband loved golf. If he were alive to hear this extraordinary achievement, how delighted he would have been. The news recalled him and prompted this poem. Recently Japanese athletes such as baseball's 大谷 and tennis's 大坂 have competed at the world's highest level. Yet for a long time Japanese people did not flourish in sport—perhaps because of physique. There was a so-called world barrier. The author says this barrier was especially high in men's golf: many top Japanese players challenged it, but none won a major. Conquering the Masters was a cherished wish of men's golf.

ワクチンの接種予約は成功も
スマホ操作に奮闘五時間　光枝

Booking vaccination caused her great trouble. The telephone lines were so crowded that she could not get through at all. She booked online with a smartphone, but unfamiliar controls and glitches meant it took five hours to finish. “Five hours,” specifically, is excellent here. To give the ending sharpness, one chooses a number of one sound unit. Of two, four, five and nine, nine is too long in duration. Five, the next longest and an odd number, is best. In my personal view, even numbers seem more stable and gentle than odd ones. The odd number five combines with “struggle” to evoke anxiety and frustration over an unfamiliar task.

くちびるや歯牙にまとひし言の葉を

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秋風に舞ふ瞳に告げをり　成秋

This poem alludes to a haiku by 松尾芭蕉:

物いへば唇寒し秋の風　芭蕉

In its headnote, Basho taught caution in speaking because unnecessary words bring misfortune. Professor Hamano says he was disappointed that someone revered as the saint of haiku should use poetry to preach ordinary street-corner morality. Surely literature means laying oneself bare. People sometimes want to criticize others, but, as 「まとひし」 expresses, usually do not voice those words. Does that mean they refrain from criticism? No. As eyes can speak as eloquently as mouths, they criticize with their eyes instead. The poem asks us to look at that disagreeable heart of his.

小雨降るブーゲンビルに鎮魂す
万葉の歌父と捧げん　弘子

Her father was on Bougainville during the war. He died without revisiting it after the war, but she thought he surely wished to. About twelve years ago, intending to take his spirit with her, she made a memorial journey to Bougainville; this poem records it. “The Manyoshu song” probably means 『海行かば』, whose words are taken from a Manyoshu poem by 大伴家持.

九時に寝る忙しき頃の夢を見て
五時四〇分今日も日曜　和子

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Five forty is a very precise time. In her busy days she went to bed at nine and rose early the next morning. Now she no longer needs to rise early, but dreaming of those days woke her at five forty: probably a poem of an actual experience.

木漏れ陽の光鋭く空を裂く
心ふるえる白内障オペ　艶子

Those who have had cataract surgery will understand 「光鋭く」 particularly well, but this was composed before the operation. Words such as filtered sunlight and sky, whose images do not ordinarily overlap with surgery, are paired with sharpness and splitting to connect with the operation in the second half. The whole is carefully brought together.

クラス会年重ねたる老の身を
忘れ乙女にもどるひと時　晴美

Everyone who attends a class reunion knows how all return to the people they were then. A splendid poem with which anyone can sympathize, almost letting us hear the happy laughter of the reunion.

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6. Various Partings

夫逝きて十年となり独り居も
「なれましたよと」と花を供へる　光枝

This month marks ten years since her husband's death. There is anxiety and loneliness in being alone, but she now tries to think that she has been given free time. Still, however free she feels, she says married life is at its best while one can still quarrel. Her feelings are plainly expressed; those who have lost a partner will especially sympathize.

産土の宮に飛びかうつがい鳥
おいかけおいこしいずこへか消ゆ　弘子

The author says they were actually butterflies, not birds, but the poem describes a scene she witnessed. When she stopped at a shrine to pray before her husband's operation, two butterflies flew as though chasing one another, then disappeared after a while. Watching them, she felt an overlap with the life she and her husband had shared and wrote this poem. The image comes before our eyes.

衣笠の寓居手放す日も近し
十歳の哀歌も幻と化す　成秋

This expresses his feelings about giving up his second home in Kinugasa. It feels as though the memories of time spent there will be lost along with the house. The same applies not only to houses but to long-cherished objects, keepsakes and anything that recalls the past. A part of one's own—

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—life seems to fall away, bringing sorrow. A fine poem whose subdued tone leaves a resonance. He also composed a haiku:

薔薇一輪咲いて衣笠売りて去る　成秋

梅雨はしり仙台秋保あざやかな
みどりと藤とあたたかき人と　由良子

A poem from her May journey to Akiu Onsen, about forty minutes by bus from Sendai. As she approached, looking at the fresh greenery, wild wisteria added beautiful color. She was moved by the scenery and the warmth of the local people. It is a refreshing poem that seems to blow away the unsettled weather before the rainy season.

早朝のバスの人々会話なく
マスクを付けて皆前を見る　尚道

An ordinary everyday scene, but “wearing masks” invites readers amid the pandemic to imagine many things. With restraint requested on nonessential outings, where are these passengers heading early in the morning? Work, shopping, vaccination? Is there no conversation because they travel alone, to prevent infection, or because of pressure to conform? How long will this life continue? The closing 「皆前を見る」 contains a resolve to look forward even within society's deadlock.

夫婦じアない夫婦以上のカップルの
声弾みおり朝の食卓　和子

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The poet, who lives in a care home, describes its morning dining room. Some residents entered alone after losing their spouses, met there and became couples. “A couple who are not married, but more than married” is how one described themselves in an interview for a television documentary. Homes for older people can seem quiet and somewhat gloomy, but this depiction of bright, lively residents changed my image.

蓮華の薄紅白く移ろひて
待ちたるのみや散りて枯るるを　裕二

I wrote this after seeing lotus flowers in a park near my home. They open early in the morning and close at night, but scatter in only four days. Their beautiful crimson fades daily, becoming almost white on the fourth day. White flowers among the red ones will fall that afternoon. A law of nature, yet unavoidably poignant.

夫忍び保安林保護呼びかけむ
故里の海永遠の碧さを　艶子

Her husband frequently made donations during his life. Hoping to help younger generations, he supported a local high school's protection forest, praying that it would protect Miura's sea and, beyond it, the world's seas. The school is trying to make forest protection a student club activity, but lack of funds is a problem. Her feelings as she carries on his wishes harmonize beautifully with the sea's eternal blue.

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鶯の声がしきりに響く朝
まねして口笛吹きて返せり　良江

Bush warblers are often heard in nature-rich Miura. Hearing their beautiful calls, everyone has at least once wanted to imitate them by whistling. The author did so, and a warbler came close. Seeing one at close range for the first time, she found it was indeed brown, just as she had heard. The Iwate folk song 「南部茶屋節」 includes 「声はすれども姿は見えぬ藪に鶯声ばかり」. The English name is Japanese bush warbler; “bush warbler” means something like a bird singing in the bushes. These birds are wary and rarely show themselves.

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7. The Coming of Autumn

コロナ解けわずかに残れる中学の
クラス会あり久しい便り　由良子

A poem whose content is readily understood during the present pandemic. It has depth, expressing the mixed joy of meeting classmates at a reunion and sadness that fewer remain able to attend.

人世老ひかぼそき腕で野分け戸を
閉めて雷ちしっぽり想ひて　成秋

A typhoon approaches. As he closes the storm shutters with his aged, frail arms, thunder sounds outside. This situation recalls a popular song his mother sang after studying the shamisen. Its lyrics have Thunder making people close the shutters and the two becoming tenderly intimate; the latter half comes from that. Looking it up, I found a banquet song, 「新土佐節」, with these words:

雷さんは粋な方だよ戸を閉めさせて
二人しっぽり濡らした通り雨よ
そうだそうだまったくだよ

It cannot be read from the poem alone, but his feelings for his mother are also present.

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きぬかつぎ茹でて塩つけ食すれば
旬の小芋はやっぱり旨し　光枝

Kinukatsugi are taro boiled in their skins. Small taro are in season and delicious now. The poet writes many food-related poems, I am told. As the term food culture suggests, food characterizes peoples and regions: what is prepared, how it is cooked and the manners with which it is eaten are history and culture themselves.

秋めいた風の音聞くラジオより
「少年時代」たびたび流る　尚道

「少年時代」 is 井上陽水's hit released in 1990. Without knowing it, the poem's meaning is harder to grasp. Beginning 「夏が過ぎ風あざみ」, its lyrics appear to sing of an “I” immersed in memories of the departed summer. It is often played on radio in autumn; hearing it makes autumn feel real. The poet also had in mind this poem by 藤原敏行朝臣 in the Kokin Wakashu:

秋来ぬと目にはさやかに見えねども
風の音にぞおどろかれぬる　藤原敏行朝臣

We often feel autumn by seeing colored leaves or the moon, but here the poet feels it in the wind's sound and a song from the radio. The poem expresses rich sensitivity.

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夕暮れに月下美人を褒められて
娘と思うか落ちつかぬ夜　和子

The queen-of-the-night flower opens in the evening and fades within a night. Is this about a flower she has raised coming into bloom, or is it a metaphor? “Girl” can be interpreted both ways: it may be the flower, which she regards as a daughter, or the poet herself, unsettled at the thought that the person praising the flower might see her that way. The charm lies not in deciding which is correct but in the poem's stimulation of imagination and multiple readings.

晩秋の道に落ちたるどんぐりの
行く末われに重なりて見ゆ　裕二

I composed this on seeing acorns fallen and rolling on the road in deepening autumn. On soil they would eventually sprout, but most fall on pavement and are trodden on by people and vehicles. A few quietly escape harm at the edge; some, extraordinarily lucky, remain unscathed even in the middle. It felt somehow like looking at human society.

コロナ禍の新しいままの靴履いて
半歩踏み出す青天だから　弘子

Her daughter gave her shoes on Mother's Day, but unable to go anywhere during the pandemic, she left them unused in the shoe cupboard for a long time. After the emergency declaration was lifted, on a clear day following a typhoon, she finally felt she might put them on and go out—

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—yet the pandemic had not ended. Anxiety remained; she could not take a whole step yet. “Half a step” contains the feeling that things cannot be as they were before the pandemic. Expressing an inability to go anywhere through new shoes is excellent.

台風に打たれて濡れしゴーヤーの
実は残りをりふとらぬままに　良江

The author has a kitchen garden. Lack of sunlight and continued rain have left her bitter melons poorly grown. This poem sketches that situation. Their harvest runs from around July through September, so the last harvest probably disappointed. Perhaps because of their bitterness, wild animals do not eat them; in good weather they yield splendid fruit. It is poignant that their thinness and lightness let them survive the typhoon without falling. Replacing bitter melons with another vegetable would not produce this melancholy.

雨風に秋の訪れ聞きし日は
夫のぬくもりおぼろなつかし　艶子

Three years have passed since her husband's death, and lately she often remembers him. As autumn arrived and loneliness came, she recalled his kindness and wrote this poem. Memories are densely packed for a time after a death, then gradually fade. She worried about using “oboro,” a spring seasonal word, in an autumn poem, but in tanka it presents no problem.

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8. A Gentle Gaze

サッカーのボール背負いて登り坂
脱兎のごとき少年の秋　由良子

On the clear afternoon of November 3, Culture Day, she saw an elementary-school boy energetically running up a steep hill with a football on his back. Bathed in autumn sunlight from the top of the slope, he ran like a startled hare. Envying this boy with a future before him, she wrote the scene. Distinctive wording conveys his youthfulness. The choice and order of words bring the information together with admirable balance.

小六の孫より電話声弾み
修学旅行「行けるんだよ」　光枝

The coronavirus postponed or canceled school events, and the school trip was in doubt. Then it became possible, and her grandchild telephoned to share the joy. As a sixth grader, this would be the first school trip. Having half given up, the child was all the happier, and that comes through. We can almost hear the excited voice. A poem that makes everyone want to say, “How wonderful!” and leaves the reader tender-hearted.

秋空やセピアの記憶たゆとうて
ラインダンスの靴音高く　艶子

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The author really did line dancing in the past and composed this in recollection. To bring out its dynamism, the opening is somewhat abstract and still, while the ending is concrete and moving. This leaves a strong impression and lingering resonance.

父母の御影は怖し若きまま
今宵は何処と目が問ひ給ふ　成秋

His parents' eyes in their portraits ask where he is going tonight. “Fearsome” is effective. The fact that the parents in the portraits are younger than he now is, and their apparent ability to see through his plans to go out and enjoy himself, create a strange atmosphere in which their influence remains alive after death. What the poem conveys is familial love: he always thinks of them, and his deceased parents always watch over him.

病床の父我を見たまなざしは
確かにあれは眼施と云うなり　弘子

A poem about her father in hospital. She visited daily. Once, unable to speak after a tracheotomy, he looked at her with extraordinary gentleness as she left for home. She felt his eyes said “Thank you.” Having never seen that look from him before, she remembered it. Later, reading a Buddhist book, she learned of “the gift of a kind gaze,” one of the seven gifts requiring no material wealth, and thought that was what his gaze had been. Buddhism has these seven forms of giving; the first is meeting people with kind eyes.

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謂れなに回り道せり黄昏の
われ迎へてや銀杏散り敷く　裕二

Taking a detour by chance, I found fallen ginkgo leaves covering the road like a golden carpet. I composed this on seeing that beauty, also overlapping it with my own life. 「謂れなに」 means without a reason.

東名の高速道路は工事中
海老名ＳＡすでに渋滞　尚道

Road reports on radio repeatedly mentioned expressway works; when the poet went out on an errand, he found congestion. He says he wrote with the idea that, though some tanka contain profound meaning, poems with no particular meaning should be possible too.

ボタン穴一つ一つを見つめつつ
姉が手編みしカーデガン着る　和子

Her sister, who loved knitting, made this cardigan. Every buttonhole was carefully worked. Looking at them, she feels she touches her sister's heart and keeps gazing. A moving poem written with thoughts of her sister.

石蕗の花咲き始め故郷の
野路を想ふ祖母と歩みし　良江

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A poem that brings a beautiful scene to mind. The order of the fourth and final phrases, 「野路を想ふ」 and 「祖母と歩みし」, was discussed. Placing them in the order of association brings the reader closer to the poet's feelings. The fact that it was her grandmother who walked with her creates warmth.

城跡をもとほり歩けば魂しぐれ
黒き裸枝吾に問ひかけ　滿美子

The author lives very near Kinugasa Castle. Once, walking through its ruins, she encountered rain. Knowing the battle of Kinugasa, she felt as though the souls of the dead were falling like a shower. Looking up, she saw bare branches, black after losing their leaves, seeming to question her. A splendid poem of a perception distinctive to her.

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9. Greeting the New Year amid the Pandemic

コンビニのバイクの横で仁王立ち
飯食む若者吐く息白し　由良子

The poem depicts a young person eating in a convenience-store parking area. She actually saw a young person there on a cold morning and composed it out of admiration for youth. First comes the energetic figure, legs planted beside a parked motorcycle, biting into a rice ball or bread; then white breath suggests a cold, early morning. Had they stopped while touring with friends? For lively young people enjoying a motorcycle trip, morning cold presents no problem. Youth. Excellent selection and ordering of words give the unfolding scene and feeling of a film.

房総の山並み眺む人多き
初日昇れば拍手し拝む　光枝

The author knows a superb place to see the beautiful sunrise over the mountains of the Boso Peninsula and goes every year for the first sunrise. Once little known, it has gradually become familiar to more people, drawing a New Year's Day crowd. This year's first day was clear and cloudless, with a beautiful sunrise. Formerly cheers would have risen, but everyone wore masks because of the coronavirus, so applause broke out instead.

古里に帰りて思ふは繰り言ぞ
時世の渦に浮きつ沈みつ　成秋

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A poem by Professor Seishu Hamano. Returning home brings back the past, often turning into repeated regrets about what one should have done, and quiet reflection on all that happened amid changing times. The hometown is wholly urbanized and transformed; now only the graves are familiar. Both self and hometown have changed, leaving one unsure where to seek an anchor for memory. He offered another poem of home:

古里の盆の太鼓は哀しけれ
路ゆく人のみな変わり居て　成秋

He says the Kawachi ondo of his hometown once had great vigor. Now no one can sing it as before; they barely manage by calling professionals from far away. Anyone who moved to Tokyo shares the wish that home should never change.

太陽の電池に動くパンダたち
冬日を受けて活動開始　尚道

With Ueno Zoo's pandas in the news, I wondered whether he compared pandas to toys, but the poem is about panda dolls at his home. “Pandas” and “winter sunlight” are probably the key words. Dogs or cats would not be interesting. Imagining several pandas, unique in appearance and existence, moving slowly and stopping from lack of power in weak winter light brings comic pathos to mechanical dolls. This effect too is calculated in the description.

ふるさとの駅の静寂に降り立たば

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名残の空に風花の舞ふ　裕二

The coronavirus long prevented me from visiting my family home in Aichi. On New Year's Eve I finally returned after several years and spent New Year there with family. In southern Aichi snow is rare, but flakes were dancing when I reached the station. 「名残の空」 means the sky of New Year's Eve; the next day's sky is called 「初空」 or 「初御空」.

「さあ打つぞ」旗をめざして心飛ぶ
ボールはオレンジラッキーカラー　和子

She joined a ground-golf circle about a year ago and eagerly looks forward to twice-weekly practice. Imagining her energetically following the ball makes us feel like spectators and want to call encouragement. The poem is dynamic, and orange, an invigorating “vitamin color,” works effectively as her lucky color. Ground golf is a simplified form of golf, played individually rather than in teams like gateball.

沖縄の海岸に住むアヒルの子
ラインにて観る名前はガーコ　良江

The author comes from Okinawa. Ducks settled on the shore in front of her family home; one became three before anyone noticed. We picture ducks in freshwater ponds or rivers, but as omnivores they are probably all right on a seashore. Calling the duckling “Gaako” is so obvious that it could become a cliché, yet it brings out ducks' comically absent-minded air and works effectively. Ducks have the property of imprinting: regarding the first moving thing they see as a parent.

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Imagining Gaako following its parent makes one smile.

来し方を想い眺めるわが心
清々とした天に預ける　滿美子

This New Year's Day had splendid weather. As the year began, the poet considered whether to acknowledge all she had done, then felt she could entrust everything to the pure heavens and live onward. As with the blue sky before her, clouds in her heart seem to disappear, leaving clarity. Rather than resignation, perhaps uncertainty dissolved and she felt ready to accept things as they are. Yet the complexity is that she also seems to be telling herself this, and one senses some wavering in the state she has reached. 石川啄木's 『悲しき玩具』 includes:

年明けてゆるめる心！うつとりと
来し方をすべて忘れしごとし　啄木

The past is part of life and cannot be erased. Both the wish to accept it, as 岩間 does, and 啄木's wish to forget it at least for New Year are understandable. Everyone wavers between the two.

あの頃の「任せておけ」というガッツ
いつのまにやら空の彼方か　弘子

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This can be read as about the poet herself or about someone who once said that to her. Readers may choose freely, but I take the latter view because the poet is a woman and both “Leave it to me” and “guts” seem masculine expressions. I have heard her husband was ill; perhaps it is about him. Did she write from loneliness as a once vigorous, strong husband lost heart through illness? I interpret 「空の彼方か」 as lament.

はらはらと初雪の降る嬉しさに
八十路超えても幼子のごと　艶子

In snowy regions people would be weary of it, but elsewhere snowfall makes many feel a fresh delight, as here. The opening mimetic word “harahara” was discussed. Snow suggests “chirachira,” “harahara,” “shinshin” or “konkon.” 斎藤茂吉 wrote:

現身のわが血脈のやや細り
墓地にしんしんと雪つもる見ゆ　茂吉

His poem, watching snow fall deeply and silently while thinking he too will soon enter a grave, is excellent but dark. Side by side, we see that although both concern snow, this poet needs “harahara” and 茂吉 needs “shinshin.” Some may find “harahara” odd; perhaps because of collocation. It is more often paired with “dance” than “fall.”

コロナ禍に追い打ちかけるオミクロン

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備えし武具の盾にて守る　晴美

The inventive use of words evoking the age of warring states makes this distinctive. Does the prepared shield of armament mean a vaccine? “Dealing a further blow” also belongs to warfare, connecting the poem's halves. Too small to see without an electron microscope, the coronavirus has countless projections called spikes on its surface. That spiky form does resemble armor. War indeed? Perhaps she composed by expanding a visual image.

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10. When Snow Turns to Rain

寒風に凛と向かいて行く人に
吾も倣いて歩幅を正す　由良子

Early one morning, despite the intense cold, the poet saw an older person walking with dignity and followed that example. The excellence of the poem lies in its immediacy: instead of the simple word “walk,” it uses expressions that open out into images, such as “proceeding into the cold wind” and “setting my stride in order.”

あと少し布団にもぐる寒い朝
時計見ながらあと少しだけ　光枝

Surely everyone can understand the feeling in this poem. Houses today are more airtight and better insulated; drafts no longer come through as they did in older houses, so we feel this less than we once did. Even so, getting out of the futon on a bitterly cold morning is hard. The refrain “just a little longer” works well. For anyone whose “just a little longer” led to falling asleep again and a “major disaster,” this is a poem to send a chill down the spine.

憶良おくららよ遺言よ税よとめくるめき
昔の人もかくて逝くかや　成秋

山上憶良 returned from an embassy to Tang China having acquired the latest learning, but failed to advance in his official career. Although appointment as governor of Hoki and Chikuzen amounted to promotion, he was sent away to the provinces. The poems he composed there poignantly convey his sense of going unrewarded. Feeling that he himself might now be thinking the kinds of things 憶良 had thought—

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—the poet addresses his predecessor. He says he wrote it half in self-mockery and half in humor, but it is truly a modern version of 貧窮問答歌. Reading 憶良 as “おくらら,” as the ruby indicates, creates the rhythm. Writing 憶良等 or 憶良ら instead would change the meaning to “those like 憶良.” Reading aloud makes clear how greatly the added “ら” improves the rhythm of the first and second phrases.

厚い手で生くるを紡ぐラカンパネラ
フジコへミング御年九十　弘子

The poet actually attended a concert by Fujiko Hemming last year. Ninety-year-old Fujiko came onto the stage with a walking stick, but seemed a different person once she began playing the piano. Listening while recalling the turbulent life she had heard about on television and elsewhere, the poet was moved to tears. Fujiko's thick hands playing so powerfully left a particularly strong impression.

I read a newspaper article about a male fisherman. Deeply moved when he watched Fujiko Hemming perform La Campanella on television, he wanted to play it himself and began learning the piano in his fifties. Unable to read music and with no previous instrumental experience, he practiced this extremely difficult piece intensely for years, and eventually performed it before Fujiko herself. There is something special in Fujiko's La Campanella that moves people's hearts. “La Campanella” means “bell” in Italian.

春立てど凍てつく風の吹きたれば
天地つつまむ夢幻の衣に　裕二

The literal meaning is that, since cold winds are blowing despite spring's arrival, I will envelop the world in dreams and visions. Nothing specific is stated, so each reader may interpret it personally. I composed it thinking of a world in which, even after the new year—

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—dark events continue. But it could also be read as cheerfully imagining warm spring days because the cold days keep coming, or as imagining a fantastic world.

百々伝ふ衣笠城の井の端に
佇み向かひて父祖の聲聴く　滿美子

This poem was composed with thoughts of the poet's Miura-clan ancestors, her roots. She says the opening 百々伝ふ comes from the death poem of 大津皇子, who was falsely accused of rebellion and forced to take his own life.

ももづたふ磐余の池に鳴く鴨を
今日のみ見てや雲隠りなむ　大津皇子

ももづたふ is a pillow word associated with Iware. The poet used it to express the long history of Kinugasa Castle. The castle's well is the one called 不動井戸; according to legend, Gyoki struck a rock with his staff and made water spring forth. Against 大津皇子's poem of “death,” looking at the ducks on the pond and thinking he will now die, stands a poem of “life”: looking at the castle well and resolving to live henceforth with her ancestors in mind. Both poems touch the heart.

バイク音響かせて来る新聞に
立春の朝少し風あり　尚道

This is an everyday scene that could be found anywhere. Yet amid the current coronavirus pandemic, everyone keenly feels the importance of apparently trivial things such as the newspaper arriving faithfully every early morning and the seasons changing as usual—

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—things that are in fact very precious. The sound of the motorbike, the smell of newspaper ink, the temperature on the morning of the beginning of spring, and the blowing wind: the words appeal one after another to our bodily senses. Reading the poem seems to stimulate those senses and make us recognize anew that we are alive.

裏山の枇杷の花咲き近付きて
マスク外して香り吸い込む　良江

There is a loquat tree in the poet's neighborhood, and when it flowers she enjoys its fragrance on her walks. The Daijirin dictionary describes loquat flowers as “numerous small white flowers at the branch tips in early winter.” Few flowers bloom in winter, so they would attract attention. 斎藤茂吉 also composed a poem about loquat flowers.

枇杷の花冬木のなかににほへるを
この世のものと今こそは見め　茂吉

For 茂吉 too, it is the fragrance. Even without knowing the actual scent, one can imagine it being pleasant because the loquat belongs to the rose family.

初めてのビデオ通話に映りたる
老婆の我にギョッと驚く　員子

Having a new smartphone, the poet wanted to try a video call and asked her daughter to help. She was startled by her own face on the screen. “Do I always look this awful?” she asked. “Yes,” her daughter replied without a moment's hesitation. Older people will probably have had similar experiences to a greater or lesser degree and be able to sympathize.

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Beginning to use something new that did not exist in the past, such as a video phone, makes one feel still young. Trying it with excitement, one is then shocked by one's own face. The scene is rather like rakugo. Aging is unwelcome to everyone, but reading this poem brightens one's mood.

雪山でふざけて買ったサングラス
手術のあとの眼覆へり　和子

Perhaps the poet has just had cataract surgery and is using sunglasses bought long ago, as described in the poem. The brightness is because the operation has made the lens clear. This poem makes one wish her increasing activity and good health.

真の友どんな時にも頼もしく
アドバイスありやさしさもあり　晴美

The poet probably has a wonderful friend like the one described here and composed the poem with that person in mind. Yet the many abstract terms make its overall message ambiguous. At what times? Reliable in what way? What advice? What kind of kindness? A more concrete expression of even one of these would make it easier for readers to develop an image. Perhaps, however, that is not the point: the poem may be asking, “Do you have a true friend?”

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11. Plum Blossoms Bloom and Scatter

早咲きの桜まつりの取り止めも
人出は多く桜満開　光枝

The Kawazu cherry-blossom festival was canceled this year, as last year, because of the novel coronavirus. Even when the festival is canceled, the cherries bloom; and when they bloom, people gather. Many people were there when the poet visited, and she walked almost as though pushing her way through them. These cherries are not the familiar Somei-yoshino but the earlier-flowering Kawazu variety. The variety probably does not matter. Cherry blossoms stir the heart. As a poem by 在原業平 also tells us, Japanese people truly love cherry blossoms.

高齢の姉の誘いで梅見の会
思い出話し亡き兄若し　由良子

The poet said it was difficult to put her feelings into thirty-one characters, but the closing phrases convey them fully. I am not quite sure of the relationships: whether the “elderly elder sister” is the poet's own sister or someone else's, and likewise with the “elder brother.” In the sister's garden stands a plum tree planted by the deceased brother when he was young. This poem recalls looking at its flowers and sharing memories of him. He was a man of few words, but apparently so vigorous that he ran in the Hakone Ekiden while at university. Beautiful memories were recounted before beautiful plum blossoms.

北条の剛し女子を想はせて
梅花流るる鎌倉の春　成秋

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The connection in meaning between the opening and closing phrases is somewhat difficult to discern. But it is a superficial interpretation to say simply that spring has come to Kamakura as plum blossoms scatter, and that the dignified, powerful image of the blossoms overlaps with Hojo Masako. It is also mistaken to think that “spring” is unnecessary because “plum blossoms” already appears. Without “spring,” the poem cannot work. Here, “spring” does not indicate a time of year: it means “a spring scene.”

What, then, is the scene to be seen in Kamakura in spring? Kamakura is a town of kept women: when spring comes, men seek young women at their secondary residences, and their wives rage like demons. The poet referred to the Edo kouta 春風がそよそよと.

春風がそよそよと
福は内へとこの宿へ
鬼は外へと梅が香添ゆる
雨か雪かままよままよ
今夜も明日の晩も居続けしょ
生姜酒

If the poem was composed with a scene like this kouta in mind, the man is Yoritomo and the demon is Masako. Yoritomo's womanizing and infidelity make Masako rage like a demon. 梅花流るる can also be read as Masako angrily tearing off a plum branch, its flowers scattering in a sudden stream. Reading this far, the imagination extends to Yoritomo's lover Kame-no-mae and the incident in which Masako had the Iijima residence where she was staying attacked. The poem evokes this history of Kamakura.

Some object to 梅花流るる on the grounds that plum blossoms do not scatter like cherry blossoms. Looking into the matter, one finds that falling plum blossoms are sometimes described as “spilling,” since the flowers fall one by one. But this wording was not used in waka of the Heian or Kamakura periods: plum blossoms “scatter.” For this poem, which turns its thoughts to the Kamakura period, 流るる, expressing such scattering, is an appropriate word. Moreover, the Manyoshu includes the following poem by 大伴旅人.

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我が園に梅の花散るひさかたの
天より雪の流れ来るかも　大伴旅人

It probably means that plum blossoms are scattering in his garden as though snow were streaming down. This poem too likens scattering plum blossoms to flowing snow and expresses them as “flowing.”

枕辺に『三浦うた紀行』最期まで
置きて逝きしと身内に聞けり　尚道

This is an elegy for a deceased acquaintance. The poet and the deceased once belonged to the same tanka group. 三浦うた紀行, mentioned in the poem, is the poet's own collection. The deceased treasured it to the very end. There can be no greater joy for a tanka poet.

「いいことない？」「何もないのがいいことよ！」
青日の談斯く沁みる今　弘子

青日 means youthful days. A casual conversation exchanged out of boredom when young now seems absolutely true. Recently, whether in the news or in messages, anything that happens is usually something bad. It is indeed a case of “No news is good news.” The 斯く in 斯く沁みる expresses the keen sense of “truly, just like this.” The colloquial opening gives a lively, youthful impression, while the more formal words of the closing phrases create a weightier, calmer feeling. This beautifully expresses the passing of years.

みちのくの海傾きて斃れける

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命のもとにも春は来るらむ　裕二

A poem of repose for the souls of the victims of the Great East Japan Earthquake of March 11, 2011. It means that spring has surely also come to those who died in the tsunami that swept into Tohoku. The phrase 海傾きて occurs in Kamo no Chomei's Hojoki. Hojoki describes the great earthquake that struck the capital in Genryaku 2 (1185), expressing the tsunami in these terms. The word “tsunami” probably did not yet exist then. I used this phrase for the tsunami of 2011 because I wanted to express how Japan has repeatedly been struck by tsunamis since long ago.

The closing 春は来るらむ is grammatically classical Japanese. I could not express its meaning in seven modern-Japanese characters, so I chose it after balancing the poem as a whole by using old language for the tsunami in its first half.

春の野に若草色や心浮き
何とは当ての無き身なれども　滿美子

There has been much dark news recently, and even with the arrival of long-awaited spring, the poet's mood did not brighten. Glancing out of the window, she saw spring orchids growing in a beautiful fresh green. Captivated, she forgot unpleasant things and felt romantic. Does spring mean that something will happen? Perhaps it might if one were young, but there is no longer anything in particular in prospect. Even so, the heart lifts, and the poet expressed that feeling.

Spring returns every year, but once the “spring” of a human life has passed, it never returns. Spring, when plants bud and overflow with vitality, wraps up and conceals this fact, making us feel that we ourselves are alive here and now. We need only live as part of nature, without resisting it. That, perhaps, is what the poem says.

亡き夫と約束したる「湯楽の里」

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親族と連れたち朝風呂に入る　員子

湯楽の里 is a hot-spring facility in Yokosuka. When the poet and her husband once passed it on work, they talked of wanting to try it sometime. She composed this poem about going there. It would have been good if her husband could have joined her, but the impossibility of that made it a poem. A morning bath with relatives is a thoroughly charming scene. The “pleasure of bathing” in the name 湯楽 also suits the poem's mood.

戻らずにじっと海見る鳥一羽
ああ、日が落ちる一緒に見ましょう　和子

The poet often watches birds perched on the roof from her room. What she finds strange is that all the many birds perch facing the sea rather than the mountains, and that exactly one always remains at dusk. Why they face the sea and why one stays behind, she does not know. But as watching them became almost a daily routine, they began to seem like friends, and this poem was born. It brings the scene vividly before the eyes.

A sunset is lonely when seen alone, but it feels different with someone else, even if that companion is a bird. The word ああ adds emotion.

一ツずつ重荷下しつ黄昏の
時を歩みて父母の影みゆ　艶子

It is the fourth year since the poet lost her husband. She said that surely she ought to be picturing his face, yet for some reason she thinks of her parents more than of him. Other people who have lost their spouses probably feel similarly. There is the saying “Blood is thicker than water.” I was told of a poem by someone whose fisherman husband died in a fishing accident—

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—wondering whether, as he died, he thought of her, his wife, or of his mother. She probably composed it because she believed he had thought of his mother rather than herself.

外出のままにならない家猫は
くしゃみ激しき抱きて歩めば　良江

This poem describes taking an indoor cat outside and finding that it sneezes. It may be based on an actual incident. What makes it amusing that the animal is a cat rather than a dog is probably the image of cats as willful and capricious. Since the sneezing is severe, and dogs and cats apparently also get hay fever, it must be hay fever. Unable even to wear a mask, might the cat have a harder time than a human?

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12. In a World Whose Future We Cannot See

星のふる観覧車で吹く早春賦
オカリナ聴きし友も逝きたり

由良子

There was a time when the poet was absorbed in playing the ocarina, carrying it everywhere and playing whenever there was a spare moment. Once, after an outing with friends that lasted late into the evening, the poet played Sōshunfu inside a Ferris wheel, at Odaiba as the poet recalls, to make a memory together. Two of the friends who listened to that ocarina have now died, and the poet no longer plays the instrument either.

一人旅初体験の孫待てば
駅降り立ちて手をふり笑顔

光枝

This poem describes a grandchild's visit during the spring holiday. The grandchild had always come in the parents' car, but was now making the journey alone for the first time, changing trains along the way. The poet waited anxiously, heart pounding; the grandchild, however, enjoyed filming the scenery from the train and was apparently quite untroubled. The upper half conveys the poet's feelings and situation, and the lower half those of the grandchild.

芳春の喜びさへも消し去りぬ
異国の街に砲弾の雨

裕二

“芳春” means spring in full blossom. The Russian military's invasion has destroyed Ukrainian towns and cities and claimed many victims. When composing this poem, I first thought of Ukraine, but I did not use a place-name, because I felt that, from the past to the present, whenever war—

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—breaks out, it brings the same tragic conditions.

在りし日にそっと作りし品々よ
何処に消ゆるこの身の後は

弘子

The poet enjoys making things, doing everything from sewing to carving wooden figures. The word “そっと” conveys making things carefully, earnestly, and with heartfelt attention, without doing so to show them to anyone. Things we have made or cherish may mean nothing much to other people. The poet wonders what will become of these things after death, composing the poem with a certain feeling of loneliness.

Returning to my mother's time

香の便り受くるも苦界ぞ包みたる
蕾の梅が枝咲かせと乞うや

成秋

“香の便り” is a perfume-scented letter from the pleasure quarters. The wife who receives it and opens it in her husband's absence is not in the pleasure quarters herself, yet hers, too, is a world of suffering. “梅が枝” was the professional name used as a courtesan by the concubine of 景季, the eldest son of 梶原源太景時. There is a story that the money she earned by selling her body paid for the armor and other military equipment 景季 needed to go to battle. The lower half can be read as 梅が枝's declaration to the lawful wife that she, and no one else, is the one giving him money and supporting him. According to the poet, lovers' quarrels of this kind occurred repeatedly during and after the war, and the poet's mother also endured painful experiences. As the prefatory note indicates, this poem was composed by placing oneself in the mother's feelings.

立つ瀬なき我が身の上の苦しきに

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春の宵なる月を眺むる

滿美子

This is probably a poem in which the poet looks inward. The painful circumstances in the upper half contrast with the beautiful spring-evening scene in the lower half. As the phrase 「春宵一刻値千金」 suggests, spring evenings are wonderfully evocative. The expression “立つ瀬” in the opening phrase directs awareness and the gaze downward, toward the ground underfoot; in the final phrase, “月を眺むる,” the gaze turns upward all at once. This probably expresses a movement of the heart as well.

「員」の字を「かず」と読む人増えしかも
大河ドラマの比企能員見て

員子

No one had ever read the poet's name as “Kazuko.” When, in a high-school history class, the poet first saw the name of the warrior Hiki Yoshikazu, it seemed as though her own name was there. Hiki Yoshikazu appears in the historical television drama currently being broadcast; this delighted her so much that she composed the poem.

シベリアに送られ戻りし人の短歌
再び読めりロシアの戦争

尚道

Everyone of the poet's parents' generation experienced the war, and some of the poet's acquaintances were actually interned in Siberia. People of that generation composed poems about their experiences of Siberian internment. Reading those poems made the poet feel that Russia's behavior had not changed between then and now.

安定剤心も体も支配して
ほんとの自分はどこにいるのと

和子

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The poet underwent eye surgery and took a tranquilizer afterward. The lower half effectively expresses the state of being unable to move the body under the medication's effects, with consciousness clouded and beyond one's control.

春浅く夕日輝き波寄せて
鴎鳴くなよ、過ぎし日うつつ

艶子

Does the final phrase, “過ぎし日うつつ,” mean something like “days gone by become real”? If so, how does that ending connect with the beautiful seascape of the setting sun? It probably expresses something that only the poet understands.

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13. Even the Cherry Blossoms Pass Away

花終へて赤く色づくさくらんぼ
鳥ついばめば種散乱す

光枝

The “さくらんぼ” in this poem are the fruit of mountain or Yoshino cherry trees. When the poem was composed, birds were eating the fruit and dropping the stones, so the poet had to be careful when hanging out the laundry. The world may change, but nature's workings remain the same: flowers bloom in their season, and birds fly to and fro. Such were the feelings behind this poem.

フロントに花びら四、五片はりついて
病院帰りのわれを迎へり

由良子

The poet developed an earache and, worried, went to the hospital for an examination, only to find that nothing in particular was wrong. The doctor said that cleaning one's ears too much was not good. Returning in relief, the poet found cherry petals stuck to the car's windshield. They might already have been there on the outward journey, but there had been no room in the poet's mind to notice; only on returning did they become apparent. The petals soothed the heart, and the poem expresses that relief. The number—four or five—is exquisitely chosen.

春よ春驕れる心はち切れて
上京せしは十八の春

艶子

The poet was once a member of the Shochiku Revue (SKD). Perhaps this poem recalls going to Tokyo after passing the audition. The poem says “驕れる心,” but a friend of the poet explained: “Being chosen for SKD and going to glamorous Tokyo from somewhere as rural as Miura was an extraordinary thing. Naturally, she must have been full of confidence and felt that she was one of the chosen—

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—ones.” Looking back now, why does the poet think of her younger self as having been conceited? “春” appears three times, conveying how full of joy she was then.

喪中なる我も明るきマニキュアを
つけて歩めば足取り軽し

員子

Six months have passed since the poet lost her husband. To brighten her dark, sunken spirits, she wears bright nail polish and clothes in cheerful colors. After losing someone we love, the reality may not sink in immediately, but feelings of grief eventually emerge. Each person must find a way through them. Composing tanka also lets us look at ourselves from a little distance and can help in that process.

初孫の初給料のお誘いは
大好物のあんかけうどん

弘子

A single reading conveys the poet's happiness. We often hear of children doing something for their parents with their first pay, but when a grandchild does it, the joy is greater still. The poet loves the udon with a thickened sauce at a favorite restaurant. Remembering this, the grandchild invited the poet there upon receiving that first pay. That it is the familiar, everyday dish of ankake udon, rather than something expensive and pretentious, makes us smile. The poem enfolds the reader in happiness too.

汝が庵は仮寝の宿よと天の声
されど衾はやはらか温きぞ

成秋

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The “天の声” is the voice of another self. It whispers that the warm bedding in which one sleeps every day is only a temporary dwelling, and that the place of one's eventual long sleep will be cold. Such feelings arise because the poet's frail health made death a constant awareness from childhood, and because the poet left home in search of a place to live while worrying about the parents left behind. Even in the present place of comfortable living, the thought “汝が庵は仮寝の宿” comes to mind. Perhaps the heart of someone who follows the path of literature is like an eternal traveler who never settles into repose.

見つめたるわれの視線を感じてや
雲に隠れし春の夜の月

裕二

When I look up at the night sky on my way home from work or at other times, I can see the stars and moon on clear nights. The stars remain the same, but the moon changes its “expression” each time I see it. Sometimes it looks sad; at other times, powerful. The other day, when I was feeling low, the moon I looked up at was gentle and beautiful, but after I had watched for a while, it disappeared behind a cloud. It was as though being gazed at had made it shy. I composed this poem remembering that night's moon.

杜若池端に立つ人影の
業平に似て憂いを誘う

滿美子

The poet describes an experience while visiting the Nezu Museum's special exhibition “A Tea Gathering with the Irises Screens.” When irises come into bloom, the poet thinks of Ariwara no Narihira, regarded as the protagonist of The Tales of Ise. After seeing Ogata Kōrin's famous Irises screens, the poet walked through the museum garden and found real irises blooming by the pond. A man stood there alone. The scene brought to mind Narihira, who composed the “kakitsubata” poem upon seeing the irises blooming beautifully at Yatsuhashi in Mikawa Province.

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The “kakitsubata” poem is the following poem of homesickness by Narihira, with the syllables of “かきつばた” placed at the beginnings of its phrases.

唐衣きつつなれにしつましあれば
はるばる来ぬる旅をしぞ思ふ

業平

誰も来ぬ一日なれど裏山に
来たる狸を猫に教はる

尚道

If this describes an actual event, then, since tanuki are nocturnal, the tanuki arrived just as a day without visitors was drawing to a close. In Japanese folktales and legends, tanuki appear as animals that trick people. In recent years they seem less welcome, as uninvited visitors that damage crops. I, however, tend to see only Shigaraki-ware tanuki ornaments rather than real animals, and so I give them an amusing and favorable image of my own. The cat, being wary, may have disliked the tanuki's appearance; but perhaps the poet felt a certain pleasure that someone had come, even if it was a tanuki.

ビートルズ流して飛ばした第三京浜
あの頃のわたし何着てたっけ

和子

Recently the poet's eyes had been troubling her and she had undergone surgery. With little going well and unable to think of a poem, this one suddenly came to her for some reason. She does not know why this particular poem appeared, but memories of youth often return. She clearly remembers both the music that was playing and the surrounding scenery, yet remembers nothing about herself. Although she likes clothes, for some reason she cannot even recall what she was wearing. The upper half, which could almost be the lyrics of a popular song, might occur to someone else; the lower half is an expression uniquely her own.

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14. Memories Are Always Vivid

戻らねば我が物顔のどくだみが
君の小径を占拠するかも

弘子

A friend who cherished a flower-lined path in the garden at home suddenly had to move away, and the poet took on its care. On returning after a while, the poet found the path entirely overgrown with dokudami. This is how quickly things change when people are no longer there. The poet thought of the friend who wanted to return but could not, and also of the people of Fukushima and of Ukraine, where war is now being fought. There are circumstances that cannot be helped. Yet without haste, the dokudami will take over. It was this feeling that prompted the word “占拠,” occupation.

お祭りも海も花火もみな中止
夏のたのしみなき三年目

光枝

Although this poem is about Misaki, everyone across Japan shares the experience. Festivals, the seaside, and fireworks—the three things that might be called the hallmarks of summer—have been canceled for three years now. Considering the fact that infections increase every summer, one almost wonders whether these activities will be possible in the future either. If cancellations continue, might they become the norm and make restarting difficult? It is having pleasures to look forward to that enables us to endure summer's harsh heat. How long will these flavorless summers continue? This poem speaks for people's feelings during the coronavirus pandemic.

螢火の小川の岸に立つ父母の
着物も帯もいづこに去るや

成秋

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Fireflies could once be seen close at hand, and family outings to watch them, as in this poem, were probably not unusual. The poet still clearly remembers the kimono the parents wore on such an outing, but wonders where they have gone. That thought gave rise to this poem. In the end, they remain only in memory. The setting is “小川の岸” because of a memory of the father, who had come in wooden clogs, stepping on a snake on the far side of the stream he had crossed. It brought Sōseki's haiku to mind:

蛍狩われを小川に落としけり

胆管癌三十三年目で完治したと
でんわの老友声トーン高し

由良子

A friend from high school telephoned to say that, on visiting the hospital, she had been told by the doctor: “The cancer is completely cured, so you no longer need to come for appointments.” Her voice as she conveyed the news was high and almost singing, as though she had been freed from her anxious days. Feeling how wonderful this was, the poet turned the friend's report into a poem. Thirty-three years is a very long time, but I have heard somewhere that three is an auspicious number: through the sound “mitsu,” it suggests being fulfilled or having a wish come true. Thirty-three years—was it coincidence?

現人はいつか散りぬる宿命なれど
千紫万紅けふも咲きたり

裕二

“現人” means, as the characters themselves indicate, a person who is alive now. I did not use “現し身,” which denotes the body living in this world, because I did not want to introduce a suggestion that the soul remains even when the body perishes. The poem says that all people will die someday, but that their lives take many different forms. It likens life to a flower—not quite in the words of—

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—Mushanokōji Saneatsu, 「人見るもよし、人見ざるもよし、されど我は咲くなり」, but with that comparison.

二年経ち又脊が伸びたか若き人
吾優先席に埋もれてゆく

和子

The spread of the novel coronavirus had kept the poet from traveling far for a long time. On taking a train for the first time in about two years, she felt that everyone had less emotional room to spare than before. In such a world, young people grow larger still, while she wondered whether there was nothing she could do but sink out of sight. The poem expresses that sadness.

糖尿の祖母への土産は「白い恋人」
一日一個の制限つきで

員子

The “祖母” is the poet herself, and this poem comes from her own experience. With diabetes, one must restrict not only sweets but also salt and fluid intake. Among souvenirs from Hokkaido there would seem to be other, non-sweet choices, yet how endearing that the grandchild wanted to give the grandmother the quintessential “Shiroi Koibito,” even if it meant limiting her to one a day. It had been a very enjoyable trip, and surely the grandchild wanted to give her some of that pleasure too.

新蛍独り飛びたる夏の宵
虚空に向かい心預ける

滿美子

The upper half evokes a single firefly drifting slowly through the air, emitting a dreamlike light. The lower half expresses the poet's wish, alone and looking into an empty sky, to entrust the heart to it. The poet identifies with the lone firefly, with its air of transience and loneliness. Wishing to shine like the firefly—

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—the poet nevertheless means to go on living with a loneliness that cannot be erased: that is the feeling we can read here. The poem leaves a lingering resonance in the heart.

裏山の枇杷は豊作忘れてた
「揺籃のうた」声出して歌う

尚道

Seeing a heavy crop of loquats, the poet wondered whether loquats appeared in a song somewhere, and then remembered that the words “枇杷の実” occur in the second verse of the children's song “揺籃のうた.” To recall the song, the poet tried singing it aloud. This poem describes that moment. On looking it up, I found that the lyrics of “揺籃のうた” were written by Kitahara Hakushū.

恋しくて傘にかくれて泣きました
疎開なるもの御存知ですか

艶子

At the age of seven, the poet and her older sister were evacuated together to a relative's home for two or three months. Even now, rain brings that time back to her, and the people she longs for in the poem are her parents. When the war ended and her father came to collect the two sisters from their evacuation home, she knew it was him simply from the sound of his footsteps. Intending to speak to younger people unfamiliar with wartime evacuation, she used colloquial language in a tanka for the first time. The technique succeeds splendidly.

The lower half of the poem takes the form of a question, which implies the presence of a young person listening. The upper and lower halves thus contrast young people in wartime with young people today. By introducing the experience of evacuation, the poem creates a gap of more than seventy years between them; by asking about “疎開,” it bridges that gap and connects the two. A wonderful poem.

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Principal References

Names and original book titles are retained for bibliographic identification; the English titles in brackets are descriptive translations.

• 上田三四二. 『短歌一生 物に到るこころ』 [A Lifetime of Tanka: The Mind That Reaches Things]. Kodansha Gakujutsu Bunko, 1987.
• 岡井隆, supervising editor. 『岩波現代短歌辞典』 [Iwanami Dictionary of Contemporary Tanka]. Iwanami Shoten, 1999.
• 佐佐木信綱. 『万葉集事典』 [Dictionary of the Man'yōshū]. Heibonsha, 1980.
• 佐佐木幸綱 and others, eds. 『日本歌語事典』 [Dictionary of Japanese Poetic Vocabulary]. Taishukan Shoten, 1994.
• 佐竹昭広 and others, eds. 『新日本古典文学大系一 萬葉集一』 [New Collection of Japanese Classical Literature, 1: Man'yōshū, 1]. Iwanami Shoten, 1999.
• —. 『新日本古典文学大系二 萬葉集二』 [New Collection of Japanese Classical Literature, 2: Man'yōshū, 2]. Iwanami Shoten, 2000.
• —. 『新日本古典文学大系三 萬葉集三』 [New Collection of Japanese Classical Literature, 3: Man'yōshū, 3]. Iwanami Shoten, 2002.
• —. 『新日本古典文学大系四 萬葉集四』 [New Collection of Japanese Classical Literature, 4: Man'yōshū, 4]. Iwanami Shoten, 2003.
• —. 『新日本古典文学大系五 古今和歌集』 [New Collection of Japanese Classical Literature, 5: Kokin Wakashū]. Iwanami Shoten, 1989.
• —. 『新日本古典文学大系三九 方丈記・徒然草』 [New Collection of Japanese Classical Literature, 39: Hōjōki and Tsurezuregusa]. Iwanami Shoten, 1989.
• The 「新編国歌大観」 Editorial Committee, ed. 『新編国歌大観』 [New Comprehensive Collection of Japanese Poetry], all ten volumes. Kadokawa Shoten, 1983–1992.

And other works. Studies of individual poets are omitted.

Japan Romanticism Academia

Historical roster reproduced from this source; these are the roles and affiliations stated in the original, not a current staff listing. Personal names without a verified reading are retained in Japanese.

• Chief Advisor: 井村君江 — Professor Emerita, Meisei University.
• Honorary Advisor: 鈴木孝夫 — Professor Emeritus, Keio University.
• President, Poetry Master, and Chair of the Board: 濱野成秋 — formerly a professor at Japan Women's University and the Graduate School of Kyoto University of Foreign Studies.
• Vice President: 河内裕二 — university lecturer; specialization in American studies.
• Executive Director for the Tokyo Region: 和泉元彌 — head of the Izumi school of kyōgen.
• Director for the Kansai Region: 福田京一 — Professor Emeritus, Doshisha Women's College of Liberal Arts.
• Director for the Kyushu Region: 市川邦康 — Professor Emeritus, Kurume University.
• Executive Director for the Tohoku Region: 伊達雅彦 — professor, Shobi University.
• Specially Appointed Professor: 若松宗雄 — former president of Sony Music.
• Specially Appointed Professor: 和泉元彌 — performing arts.