Fuku kaze ni tsukete mono omou ama no taku shio no keburi wa tazune idezu ya

English Translation

Will you not seek out
the smoke of the salt-fires that
the seafolk — the nun —
burns, brooding at every turn
of the wind that blows past her?

Meaning

Will you not seek out the smoke of the salt-fires burned by one who broods at every turn of the wind — a seafolk woman, a nun?

Commentary

38 The Pilgrimage to Mitake; Exchanges with the Lady of the Exiled Minister

While things went on so, she began to feel a little more herself; but past the twentieth of the month Kaneie set out in haste on a pilgrimage to Mitake. The young Michitsuna was to go in his train, so she made him ready and saw him off, and that evening, the old house having been put in order, she moved back to it. Those who were to have attended her had been left behind, and so she simply moved. Having sent with him the one child who gave her most anxiety, she went on praying and wondering how they fared; and about the first of the seventh month someone came at dawn to say that they had returned only that moment. The distance from here was now very great, she thought, so that coming and going would be hard for a while — and then about midday he appeared, which was surely something. About that time the wife of the exiled Minister, learning somehow that the earlier poem had come from Tōnomine, had — so it seemed, about the sixth month — sent an answer; but the messenger carried it to the wrong house. Those who received it evidently thought nothing strange, and answered it; and hearing of that answer at second hand it became clear that the place had been mistaken. There was nothing to be said; and yet to send the same thing again, when she must have heard of the other, would look perverse indeed. Hearing that they were exclaiming over how heartless she must think them, the author was amused, and resolving not to leave it there she wrote in the same hand as before. She wrote on pale blue paper and tied it in a formal fold to a branch thick with leaves. This messenger too set it down and vanished, so that the lady perhaps refrained, supposing it to be as before. Still it was uncertain. Everything about it was strange. After a time the lady found a trustworthy channel and sent a poem, written in a childlike hand on paper of thin ink and tied to a pine branch. The answer to it was written on walnut-colored paper and tied to a pine whose color had changed.
The author was a daughter of Fujiwara no Tomoyasu. Kaneie was the third son of Fujiwara no Morosuke and would rise to be regent and chancellor. The child who went in his train is her son, Fujiwara no Michitsuna. The wife of the exiled Minister is the wife of the Minister of the Left of Nishinomiya, sent away in the Anna affair; she had taken vows as a nun in the sixth month. The text gives no name. Tōnomine is where her brother, the lay priest, lived, and the earlier long poem had been sent as though it came from there.
It is about the seventh month of the second year of Anna, and the place is the lady's residence at Momozono.
It answers the poem saying that the author had searched in vain an empty sky; after a time the lady found a trustworthy channel and sent it. It was written in a childlike hand on paper of thin ink and tied to a pine branch.
The author replied with "Aruru ura ni shio no keburi wa tachikeredo konata ni kaesu kaze zo nakarishi," written on walnut-colored paper and tied to a pine whose color had changed.

She takes back the other's verb of seeking. The first two lines mean that she broods at every stirring of the wind. The word in the third line means a fisher of the sea and also a nun, and the poem turns on it: having taken vows in the sixth month, she lays her own condition over the figure of a woman burning seaweed for salt. The smoke of the fourth line is that raised in the salt-burning, the standing poetic image for a grief that never clears. The close asks whether he will not seek it out: since the other had said she searched a sky with no trace in it, the reply is that smoke at least is visible, and might have been found. Against an empty sky she offers something one can see, and in the same movement turns the messenger's disappearance into a fault of the searcher. The paper of thin ink is the color proper to mourning and to the religious life, so that even the manner of writing declares her new state.

Source

Kagero Nikki

Other