[33] ひさ (Hisa)

 Poem Meaning and Background

Photo by Caroline on Unsplash

ひさかたの・ひかりのどけき・はるのひに

hisakata no・hikari nodokeki・haru no hi ni

しづごころなく・はなのちるらむ

shizu-gokoro naku・hana no chiruran

〜紀友則 (Ki no Tomonori)

Translation

In the peaceful light

Of the ever-shining sun

In the days of spring,

Why do the cherry's new-blown blooms

Scatter like restless thoughts?

Meaning

In this poem, the author contrasts the peacefulness and relaxing feeling of warm, bright sunshine on a pleasant spring day with the restlessness of scattering cherry blossom petals, blowing in the wind. There is a sense that the passing of time is all too quick, and though the author would like to linger in this moment, the falling petals are signaling that spring will soon be coming to an end. To me, it evokes a similar feeling to the one I get when I'm enjoying a relaxing day off, but then start to feel a creeping reminder that I have to get back to work or school the next day. The poem captures a complex mixture of sadness, loss, and longing that is very hard to name (at least in English...perhaps other languages might have a word for this feeling?). 

One of the attractive features of this poem are its repetition of hi, ha, and no sounds which give the poem a pleasing flow when read aloud. The phrase hisakata no is what is known as a "pillow word" (枕詞) and is generally used to precede words like "heavens", "sky", or "moon" （天、空、月). This word itself does not have an exact translation, because by itself it carries no real meaning; rather, it serves to "decorate" the word it precedes. Here, it also serves a bit of a double purpose because the hi sound can also mean "sun" or "light"(日、光). 

Shizu-gokoronaku means 落ち着いた心がなく（ochitsuita kokoro ga naku), which in English means having restless thoughts, or a restless mind/spirit/heart. The way this is phrased in the poem makes it seem as though the cherry blossoms themselves possess a spirit that is restless. Hana no chiruran means どうして桜の花は散るのだろうか？（doushite sakura no hana wa chiru no darouka?), which in English means "Why do the cherry blossoms scatter?". The endingらむ（ran) generally denotes a question, usually a rhetorical one. Other examples of this grammar structure can be seen in the last lines of poems [18] Su and [22] Fu, among others. 

Author

A depiction of the author and
his poem by the artist Agameishi

Ki no Tomonori (c.850 ~ c.905) is the cousin of Ki no Tsurayuki, author of poem [35] Hitowa in the anthology. He is considered one of the 36 Immortals of Poetry and also helped to compile the Kokin Wakashū. It seems that though he helped to compile the imperial anthology, he did not live to see it completed, since the anthology includes a eulogy for him composed by Ki no Tsurayuki.

His poem in the Hyakunin Isshu remains one of his most famous poems and is even the basis for a choral song called "Hisakata no (In the Peaceful Light)" by Ruth Morris Gray. A performance of the song can be heard here:
https://youtu.be/zNcQziKAt3I?t=63