Kindle Notes & Highlights
If I were only sure I could live as long as I wanted to, I would not have to weep at parting from you. SHIROME
I can no longer tell dream from reality. Into what world shall I awake from this bewildering dream?
The flowers whirl away In the wind like snow. The thing that falls away Is myself.
The pillow that knows all won’t tell, for it doesn’t know, and don’t you tell of our dream of a Spring night. IZUMI SHIKIBU
Will I cease to be, Or will I remember Beyond the world, Our last meeting together? IZUMI
Everyone is asleep There is nothing to come between the moon and me.
I was sure I would never get lost in the tangled roads of love. Now I have been caught in the karma of past lives.
We were together Only a little while, And we believed our love Would last a thousand years. ŌTOMO NO YAKAMOCHI
You say, “I will come.” And you do not come. Now you say, “ I will not come.” So I shall expect you. Have I learned to understand you? LADY ŌTOMO NO SAKANOE
Better never to have met you In my dream Than to wake and reach For hands that are not there.
In the Autumn mountains The colored leaves are falling. If I could hold them back, I could still see her. KAKINOMOTO NO HITOMARO
A strange old man Stops me, Looking out of my deep mirror.
I may live on until I long for this time In which I am so unhappy, And remember it fondly.
All day I hoe weeds. At night I sleep. All night I hoe again In dreams the weeds of the day. ANONYMOUS
The purity of the moonlight, Falling out of the immense sky, Is so great that it freezes The water touched by its rays.
I feel of others’ affairs as though they were the water birds I watch floating idly on the water. My idleness comes only from sorrow. MURASAKI SHIKIBU
The first dawn comes With a clear bright flicker and You must go. In the early morning, We help each other to dress Trembling with sorrow.
Everybody tells me My hair is too long I leave it As you saw it last Dishevelled by your hands.
The Autumn cicada Dies beside its shell NAITŌ JŌSŌ
The moon is full The night is very still My heart beats Like a bell.
We are, you and me, Like two pine needles Which will dry and fall But never separate.
Only the waning morning moon visits my garden where no lover comes.
In the dusk The road is hard to see. Wait till moonrise, So I can watch you go. OYAKE-ME
