classic waka stream

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  • Kagero Nikki

Naku bakari arite koso are natsuhiki no itoma ya wa naki hitome futame ni

There is nothing left me but weeping. Summer-drawn thread: is there truly no gap in it, no leisure for one glimpse of you, or two?

Kagero Nikki - Fujiwara no Kaneie

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Kimi to ware nao shiraito no ikani shite ukifushi nakute taemu to zo omou

You and I are white thread still: how might we come to our ending without a single bitter knot along the way?

Kagero Nikki

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Yo o fu tomo chigiri okiteshi naka yori wa itodo yuyushiki koto mo miyuramu

Though the years go by, it is precisely because ours is a bond pledged beforehand that ill-omened things must show themselves to you all the more.

Kagero Nikki - Fujiwara no Kaneie

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Tsurezure no nagame no uchi ni sosoguramu koto no suji koso okashikarikere

In these idle days of long rain, the way of the thing — how it must be pouring in upon you over there — has a certain charm to it.

Kagero Nikki

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Izuko ni mo nagame no sosogu koro nareba yo ni furu hito wa nodokekaraji o

It is the season when the long rain pours down everywhere; whoever passes his days in this world can hardly be at ease in it.

Kagero Nikki - The Mother of Fujiwara no Michitsuna

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Ame no shita sawagu kokoro mo ōmizu ni tare mo koiji ni nurezarame ya wa

Under all heaven the restless heart itself has risen to a flood; and who shall walk the miry road of love and not be soaked?

Kagero Nikki

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Yo to tomo ni katsu miru hito no koiji o mo hosu yo araji to omoi koso yare

For those who see each other day in and day out, I imagine the miry road of love can have no hour in which to dry.

Kagero Nikki

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Shika mo inu kimi wa nururamu tsune ni sumu tokoro ni wa mata koiji dani nashi

It is you, who never sit still, who must be the one soaked through. In a house where one simply stays put there is not even a road of love to walk.

Kagero Nikki

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Tokonatsu ni koishiki koto ya nagusamu to kimi ga kakiho ni oru to shirazu ya

Wondering whether the pink might comfort my longing, I break a stem of it at your own hedge — and do you not know?

Kagero Nikki

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Mizu masari ura mo nagisa no koro nareba chidori no ato o fumi wa madou ka

The waters have risen, and it is the season when bay and shore are indistinguishable: is that why the letter, treading the plover's tracks, loses its way?

Kagero Nikki

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Uragakure miru koto kataki ato naraba shiohi o matamu karaki waza kana

If these are tracks the bay hides and one can hardly see, then I shall wait for the tide to fall — and a bitter, salt-bitter business it is.

Kagero Nikki - The Mother of Fujiwara no Michitsuna

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Ura mo naku fumi yaru ato o watatsuumi no shio no hiru ma mo nani ni ka wa semu

These tracks of mine, letters sent with nothing folded away in them — what use is there in waiting for the great sea's tide to ebb?

Kagero Nikki

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Kimi ga kono machi no minami ni tomi ni osoki haru ni wa ima zo tazune maireru

To the south of this quarter where you are staying, I have been slow in coming; but here at last, this spring, I have sought you out and come.

Kagero Nikki

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Ho ni ideba michi yuku hito mo maneku beki yado no susuki o horu ga warinasa

Once in ear it would beckon even the passers-by on the road; and to dig such plume grass out of my own garden — what an unreasonable demand.

Kagero Nikki

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Ayashiku mo yoru no yukue o shiranu kana kyō higurashi no koe wa kikedomo

How strange that I should not know where the night is going — and yet all day long I have heard the evening cicada's voice.

Kagero Nikki - The Mother of Fujiwara no Michitsuna

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Kumori yo no tsuki to waga mi no yukusue no obotsukanasa wa izure masareri

The moon on a clouded night, and whatever is to become of me: which of the two is the more uncertain?

Kagero Nikki - The Mother of Fujiwara no Michitsuna

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