rain on leadbetter point
jody9
Not awake and yet
Not sleepless through the night, and
With the dawn
Comes a scene from Spring:
Ever-falling rain to gaze upon all day.
Ariwara no Narihira, the 9th century Japanese poet, is one of those romantic historical figures whose actual lives are inseparable from legend. His father was a son of Emperor Heijō-tennō; his mother was a daughter of Emperor Kanmu-tennō — a lineage that should have protected him from most scandal. But Narihira had a reputation as something of a ladies man, and it’s said he was sent into temporary exile because of an ‘intrigue’ he had with the Empress.
Despite the scandal, Narihira is widely recognized as one of medieval Japan’s greatest poets. This particular poem, composed in the early hours of the morning during a gentle rain, was sent to a woman he had been secretly seeing. She had the good sense to cast aside Narihira but still keep his poem.
This photograph isn’t ‘a scene come from Spring’ but it’s so perfectly and gently romantic that I’m certain Narihira would have loved it.
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
