untitled
The flowers have fallen,
With not even their colours
On which to rest my gaze, as
From the empty skies
Spring rains fall.
Little is known of the Princess Sokushi, who wrote this poem at the end of the 12th century. Although she was the third daughter of Go-Shirakawa, the 77th Emperor of Japan, and a renowned poet of the era, there is almost no historical record of her life. As a woman—an unmarried woman—she was simply not considered important enough for her life to merit much attention. She is known almost entirely through her 399 poems—melancholy poems, sentiments of isolation and loneliness, works of desperate beauty.
It’s raining against the window as I write this. Raining as I look at this photograph of a woman whose gaze is turned away, perhaps seeking the colours of fallen flowers, perhaps watching as From the empty skies / Spring rains fall. It’s chilly and raining, and there is really nothing to connect this face with the 800-year-old poems of Sokushi except the chill and the rain and my own desire to find something quiet and lovely on which to rest my gaze.
Photo "4621940649" not found (invalid ID)Photo "4621940649" not found (invalid ID)Photo "4621940649" not found (invalid ID)Blog photograph copyrighted to the photographer and used with permission by utata.org. All photographs used on utata.org are stored on flickr.com and are obtained via the flickr API. Text is copyrighted to the author, greg fallis and is used with permission by utata.org. Please see Show and Share Your Work
