Oranges and Cicadas

 ORANGES AND CICADAS

#waka #cicada #tachibana #hagoromo #japanesepoetry #oranges

Original post 2022 

Reposted with some edits 2024 

I was looking for poems about tachibana and trying to avoid the usual cliches about the scent of orange blossom. The Japanese grow tachibana mainly for the scent. Other types of citrus are grown for fruit.

Its an odd plant in that its described as "native" to Japanese but its a hybrid of a hybrid of a sub species that somewhat made it to Japan and its not quite the same plant as the Chinese version.

This is by Fujiwara Takanobu 

Noki chikaki 

Hanatachibana ni 

Kaze sugite 

Nioi o nokosu 

Semi no hagoromo 

Close by my (house) eaves(from) the orange tree the breeze leaves behind its scent (on) the cicadas robes (or wings) 

Probably he was sitting on a verandah facing a garden with a tachibana tree nearby and he could see a cicada nearby or hear it and imagines the scent also drifting on the breeze onto the cicada but wait!

Hagoromo is it robes or wings ? Hagoromo is literally feathered garment but the word is also used to describe wings and plumage. Cicadas have wings but no feathers and I wonder if seeing their glossy translucent wings made the poet think of summer gauzes those light silken under robes aristocrats might strip down to at home in the summer heat ? 

The poem was written as part of a poetry competition with summer as a theme. 

Li Shu on a painting

I went to a recent book fair a charity sake of used books and found a copy of late 1980s copies of Chinese Literature a magazine you used to see in some libraries or leftwing bookshops. 

I used to buy an issue now n then if I was in the city from one particular ship now closed because I also visited for the chinese art materials and the translations of chinese poetry 

No not Wills Quills at Chatswood but a store down in Sydneys version of Chinatown 

Anyway the mnagazine had an article on a 20th century chinese painter and tbis one i m age caught my eye because it featured the Li Shu script variant of Chinese characters.

The illustration was printed on a rather shiny paper so the image is not perfect.

Hers another image showing most of the painting as illustrated in the magazine. 

I t didnt say whether he used paper or silk.

Huang Qiu Yuan is the painter and the Chinese literature issue was Spring 1987

Sorry if I havnt posted for a while but I want to have something special to share 

Next time probably Haiku again!