Though it is not from
the one for whom I wait—still,
the first wild goose’s
cry heard this morning at dawn
is wondrous to my heart.
- Meaning
- Though it is not from the one I await, the cry of the first wild goose heard this morning is deeply moving.
- Commentary
-
Book Four Autumn Poems (Part One)
This poem describes the first wild geese of the season.
Geese, arriving from the north in autumn, were associated in legend with carrying letters, as in the tale of Su Wu. For the poet, who awaits a message, the cry of the geese is heard with a special freshness and quiet joy.
- Author
- Ariwara no Motokata
- Source
- Kokin Wakashu
- Other
-
- As evening cicadas begin their cries, the day seems done— so I thought at first; yet it was but the mountain’s shadow that had fallen there.
- In a mountain village where evening cicadas cry— at dusk’s fading hour, there comes no one to visit but the wind alone that passes.
- On the autumn wind the first wild goose is heard— its cry drifting near; for whom does it bear a letter, carried thus across the sky?
- At my very gate the inaose-bird has cried— and with that same breath, on the wind that blows this dawn the wild geese have now arrived.