Heian Japanese Poetry

A while ago, I picked up "Ten Thousand Leaves: Love Poems from the Manyoshu," translated from the Japanese by Harold Wright. The Manyoshu is an anthology of poems compiled in the 8th century during the Heian period in Japan. I totally fell in love with some of these:

  2.
  Your favorite flowers
       that are growing near the house
            have bloomed and faded
  Yet, the tears that fill my eyes 
       have not begun to dry



  25.
  Ah, if she were here
       we could listen together
           on this ocean shore
  To the sound of passing cranes
       crying in the rising sun




  111.
  How could I undo
       the sash my wife had tied
           as I departed?
  Unless it tears itself apart
       it will stay there till we meet




132.
To love someone
     who does not return that love
         is like offering prayers
Back behind a starving god 
     within a Buddhist temple

The Heian period roughly from the 700s -1100s is generally considered
Japan's "classic" period when the imperial court was at the height of its power and when Chinese and Confucianist influence was greatest. The poems from the Manyoshu are a collection from more than 400 known writers who wrote about daily life. The book that I have, focuses specifically on the love poems, which were passed between lovers. Strange as it may be to think, Japan used to have a matriarchal culture, and during the Heian period, women kept their own name, titles, and residences. Yes residences; even if you were married, you would live in a separate building from your husband because housing was grouped according to sex. So if you were a married lady at the imperial court, you would live in the women's quarters with your maids and ladies-in-waiting.

I love short poems like these. I admire poetry like this because it can evoke so much, with such a spare use of words. It's a skill that I'm trying to learn (not poetry writing dog knows we have too many bad poets in the world), the use of as few words to convey as much as possible.