Why should I resent
the blossoms as they fall?
in this fleeting world,
shall I myself remain
enduring beside them?
- Meaning
- Why should I resent the falling blossoms? In this world, can I myself remain forever alongside them?
- Commentary
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Book II, Spring Poems (Part Two)
Not only the blossoms, but the self as well is fleeting and impermanent; this is emphasized through repeated rhetorical questioning.
- Author
- Unknown Poet
- Source
- Kokin Wakashu
- Other
-
- To no avail, it cries out again and again— the warbler’s voice; for these blossoms do not fall only in this one year.
- Let us rein our steeds, and go forth to see— in my old home, blossoms must be falling as though they were snow.
- If only my heart, that feels such regret, could become a thread, then each falling blossom I would pierce and hold in place.
- With azusa bow, as I crossed the springtime hills, along the mountain path, so thickly fell the blossoms there was no way to pass them by.