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?
- Meaning
- On the autumn wind I hear the cry of the first wild goose—whose message does it carry as it comes?
- Commentary
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Book Four Autumn Poems (Part One)
This poem was paired in a poetry contest at the residence of Prince Koretada.
It is based on the Chinese tale of Su Wu, who, captured in the land of the Xiongnu, sent a letter by means of a goose to the Han emperor and was thereby able to return home safely. The poem imagines the goose as bearing a message.
- Author
- Ki no Tomonori
- Source
- Kokin Wakashu
- Other
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- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- How early it cries— the call of the passing wild goose; though the white dew yet tints the trees, not fully turned into the hues of autumn leaves.