“ It is poetry which effortlessly moves the heavens and the earth, awakens the world of invisible spirits to deep feeling, softens the relationship between men and women, and consoles the hearts of fierce warriors” Kino Tsurayuki
Love is a universal language. The bittersweet feelings of love leave the same footprints in every single heart. When I pick up a book of love poems and read it, I cannot tell if it is written now or it was written thousand years ago. For a heart that has experienced love, separation, and lost every line in a love poem is a mirror to its own words.
“Did he appear
because I fell sleep
thinking of him?
If only I’d known I was dreaming,
I’d never have wakened.”
Among many great poems that I have read and have come to worship, love Poems by Komachi and Shikibu, two female poets of the Ancient Court of Japan, are my favorites. Although these poems were written thousands years ago but their sincerity and simplicity will still leave the heart that beats for love speechless.
“ No way to see him
on this moonless night
I lie awake longing, burning,
Breast racing fire,
Heart in flames.”
Komachi
These poems speak passionately of the intimate affairs of women. They are words dancing to the music of sexual longing, fulfillment and disappointments. Komachi and Shikibu brief love poems are deeply moving erotica that despite their simplicity belong to the same class as Sappho and Dickinson.
“There are many
Strange and lovely things
that swim in the midnight tide pools…
and I
do not want to share them
with other divers’ eyes by day…….
………
Remembering you…..
the fireflies of this marsh
seems like sparks that rise
from my body’s longing…….
………
It would be console me
If you returned
even for the length of the flash
seen and then gone
of lightning at dusk”
Indeed the concerns of heart and mind remain unchanged from millennium to millennium and sadly the punishments for those concerns also remain unchanged from millennium to millennium. One should never believe in the sensual love as being a sin.
If love was a sin then any one with a heart would have been a sinner.
“Some cross the path of love,
some don’t.
unless you are the watchman there
It is not your right
to cast blame.”
Shikibu
Here I would like to share with you a few pictures that I took lately from cherry blossoming trees in DC accompanied by some of my favorite poems of Komachi and Shikibu.
Enjoy
