This very morning,
having just begun to cry,
still on its journey,
o cuckoo, pray take rest
in my blooming orange tree.
- Meaning
-
Having just begun to cry this very morning and still on its journey, O cuckoo, I wish you would take lodging in the orange blossoms at my home.
- Commentary
-
Book III, Summer Poems
The cuckoo and the bush warbler were thought to come down from the mountains to the human world in their season. The cuckoo was believed to lodge in the orange tree.
The poem expresses a wish to fully enjoy the cuckoo’s song.
- Author
-
Unknown Poet
- Source
-
Kokin Wakashu
- Other
-
-
Awaiting the Fifth Month,
when I catch the scent
of orange blossoms,
it is the fragrance
of one long past that comes to me.
-
Before I knew it,
has the Fifth Month come?
from the mountain depths,
the cuckoo at last now
has begun to cry aloud.
-
Crossing Mount Otowa
this very morning,
the cuckoo now cries,
from treetops far away,
its voice drifting to me.
-
When first I hear it,
the cuckoo’s earliest cry,
helplessly I feel,
a longing for someone—
though no one is yet mine.