Sunday, March 23

hana no iro wa

はなのいろは
うつりにけりな
いたづらに
わがみよにふる
ながめせしまに

Behold my flower:
its beauty wasted away
   on idle concerns
that have kept me gazing out
   as time coursed by with the rains.

~ono no komachi, 825
Filed under: ,

3 comments:

  1. Papa DMarch 24, 2008 at 3:35 PM

    I like it. Of course, a mission to Japan (so long ago that I've forgotten nearly all of my Japanese) helps my interest. *grin*

    ReplyDelete
  2. adamfMarch 24, 2008 at 3:38 PM

    Hey you went to Japan too? Cool! I was in Hiroshima! The poem is classical Japanese, which is quite different in many respects (mostly grammar/sentence endings). I had a class a few years ago and after an intense semester I was able to understand *some* of it with the help of a dictionary.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Papa DMarch 24, 2008 at 5:12 PM

    Sapporo - the "Land of the Frozen Chosen"

    The winter wimps went to other missions - excluding Sendai.

    I took third year Japanese class as a freshman, but it wasn't a good fit. The focus was on research, so I spoke the language FAR better than the other students but read and wrote it FAR worse. I wasted class every session listening to Juniors and Grad Students butcher the spoken language and couldn't keep up with the research-oriented homework. It almost made me wish I had attended BYU. *grin*

    ReplyDelete

Comments that are not offensive, snide, or off-topic enough may be subject to moderation.

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)