plum blossoms or not
they cannot be told apart now—
from the distant sky
thick-clouding snow falls everywhere
covering all in equal white
- Meaning
- Whether they are plum blossoms or not cannot be told, for snow, clouding the sky, falls everywhere in a single white.
- Commentary
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Book Six Winter Poems
The poem expresses that the white plum blossoms cannot be distinguished from the white of the falling snow. It is a scene that could only be seen in the brief transition from winter to spring.
There is also a theory that the poet is Kakinomoto no Hitomaro, a representative poet of the Man’yōshū.
- Author
- Unknown Poet
- Source
- Kokin Wakashu
- Other
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- at break of morning as though it were the lingering moon of the dawn-lit sky— in Yoshino village falls a deep white snow all around
- before it melts away fall yet again, pile ever deep— O drifting spring haze, if once you rise into the sky such snow will seldom meet my eyes
- though the hue of flowers blends with snow and cannot be seen still let their fragrance drift and softly make them known so that people may perceive
- if the scent of plum mingled with the fallen snow resting on the ground— who then could clearly discern and pluck each one apart