Ono no Komachi (b. 834)

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FIVE UNTITLED POEMS

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Did he appear
because I fell asleep
thinking of him?
If only I'd known I was dreaming,
I'd never have wakened.

               (translated by Jane Hirshfield & Mariko Aratani)

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The autumn night
is long only in name --
We've done no more
than gaze at each other
and it's already dawn.

               (translated by Jane Hirshfield & Mariko Aratani)

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His heart, grown cold,
has become my body's autumn.
Many sorrowful words
may yet fall
like the rustling leaves.

               (translated by Jane Hirshfield & Mariko Aratani)

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I thought to pick
the flower of forgetting
for myself,
but I found it
already growing in his heart.

               (translated by Jane Hirshfield & Mariko Aratani)

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Those gifts you left
have become my enemies:
without them
there might have been
a moment's forgetting.

               (translated by Jane Hirshfield & Mariko Aratani)

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Revised: February 11, 2000