More Autumnal Kikusha

Today I've got a very sad poem sequence, also from Kikusha. Kikusha's Chinese poetry is very hard for me, so this is by no means perfect. I hope it at least give a hint of the remarkable range of this talented, perpetually questing woman.

（一）
二十年来忘累機
風雲誘処促単衣
環郷松菊東籬遍
禄髪為霜去不帰

（二）
幾年逃世片心微
孤錫帰来叩旧扉
愁殺荒涼深竹色
此君今独立依依

うきわれを照せ昔の秋の月


Headnote: Already more than 20 years have passed since I became a widow, and I have been traveling from east to west. In the autumn of 1798 I returned home, and happened to visit my father-in-law's house. I wrote these two verses to express some of my feelings then.

I.
Twenty years have passed and I have forgotten many moments
Since the spirit of travel beckoned me and I set out with just a single garment.
Going back to my hometown, pines and chrysanthemums are everywhere east of the fence
My black hair turned to frost before I returned from far away.

II.
I grew tired of avoiding the world after countless years,
Returning home with my solitary traveler's staff I knocked on my old door.
I was overwhelmed by sadness, and a deep sorrow
Where he had been now flourishes lonely longing.

shine your light on me,
as I mourn for a distant past --
autumn moon

Kikusha, for All Saints / Day of the Dead

Kikusha wrote some very interesting works: poems in Chinese that were followed with a hokku, in the style of Manyôshû chôka (long courtly-style verse) that were concluded with hanka ("envoy" verses). I am not sure this is right. I've followed the interpretation in Isobe Masaru's 磯辺勝 Edo haiga kikō: Buson no hanami, Issa no shōgatsu 江戶俳画紀行 - 蕪村の花見、一茶の正月 (央公論新社, 2008).

題髑髏図

借問誰家子
紅顔墜露前
懐余這箇物
風動薄茅辺

花の骨ながら犬さへ喰へぬかな

Topic: Skull Picture

May I ask, what family’s child was this?
Still young, fallen frail as the dew.
I ponder on these things that remain
Wayside weeds and grasses, blown by the wind.

withered miscanthus may be called “flower bones”
but they are not
for dogs to gnaw

The picture comes from the Kikusha Commemoration Society's site.