Kasagi Sequence One

 #kasagi #waka #japanesepoetry #fujiwarashunzei #shunzei #samidare #kumogakuretsutsu 

KASAGI SEQUENCE 

I will be posting about this poem here and some illustrations inspired by it over on my Patreon.

This is one of those poems that seem quite simple until you analyse and translate it and realise the skill involved.

Starts off quite simply 

samidare      so early summer rain in May but then 

minakami masaru the rain is overwhelming everything ?

izumigawa spring river ?  origin river ? er no 

it took me 2 weeks of research to find out that Izumigawa is an old name for what is now known as the Kizugawa river south of Kyoto 

and the next line seems simple kasaki yama  okay Mount Kasagi in modern Japanese but enter it as a google search term and you may get Kasagiyama near Ena in Gifu! 

so is it flooding or just heavy rain or mist or fog rising from the river 

Kasagiyama is a place you go to for cherry blossom viewing and pilgrimages to an old Shingon buddhist temple and sightseeing various boulders or climbing on them.

Perhaps Shunzei was there for a buddhist retreat for look how he ends the poem 

kumogakuretsutsu kumo + gakure +tsutsu something like continually disappearing ?

so the mist or rain is fluctuating or is it a double reference implying he's there in a hermitage a hidden place maybe looking down upon the river valley?

Elegantly simple yet every reading rises another question ?

Or perhaps I just need to study a lot more waka poetry?