THE CHERRY BLOSSOM IN HEIAN WAKA POETRY

by Teppei Yamada and Steven Grieco

The cherry tree is botanically a native of the Japanese Isles. From an early period it has been the national tree of Japan. From the Man’yoshu, the earliest anthology of Japanese poems and songs (7^th-9^th cent.), down to the present day, the cherry tree has exerted on the Japanese psyche an almost mystical fascination.

It is a unique experience to view a cherry tree in full blossom. Cherry trees are usually hoary with age and of vast size. The branches spread out far above the ground, and the blossoms seem to fall from those lofty heights, like snow from a winter sky. This is perhaps why the Japanese spectator consistently feels that at any one time he can only experience a small fraction of this event, for the totality of that event is too large for a human being to conceive.

Still today, every Japanese man and woman who witness the blossoming of the cherry tree reaffirm their sense of sharing and solidarity with their fellow countrymen. It is perhaps for this reason that the tree has always been a symbol of this people’s unity under the leadership of the Emperor

In early times two trees, a plum and a mandarin orange, stood on either side of the entrance of the Imperial Palace at Kyoto. In the 8^th century a fire destroyed the Palace, which was soon rebuilt on the same site. At the entrance now stood a plum tree and a cherry tree.

In the Kokinshu, the first official Imperial Anthology of poetry, we can single out a distinct “genre” of waka poetry which deals with the blossoming of the cherry tree. In some sections of the Kokinshu we find cherry blossom wakas grouped together, in other parts they appear in more random fashion, rubbing shoulders with compositions dealing with other subjects.

We use words like “genre” or “theme” with a good deal of hesitation. And yet these seem to be the best terms in English to characterize the concept of “accumulation” in Heian waka poetry, which we have already discussed in the Introduction. It is only thanks to the slow and gradual stratification of wakas devoted to the same theme that we can speak of accumulation. By this we mean a sort of developing and diversifying of the poetic treatment of a specific subject – the despair of the unrequited lover, or the scent of mandarin orange blossoms as a vehicle for remembrance, to name just two examples. The subject is thus gradually transformed over time, growing more and more refined and subtle in expression, until it inevitably reaches a high point, sometimes followed by a further stage of over-elaboration and decadence.

A careful study of the Kokinshu suggests that Ki no Tsurayuki, one of its chief compilers and a great poet in his own right, set out a very loose system of basic indications to serve as a guide for those who wished to treat the cherry blossom theme in poetic form.

They are:

The cherry tree in full blossom is viewed in the daytime hours. The tree, and especially the whole area that lies directly beneath it, and upon which it casts its translucent shade, constitute a sort of sacred, inviolate space, often referred to as tokoro. Here the wind is either totally absent, or then its presence is mainly a disrupting one.

Well nigh two thirds of Kokinshu compositions on the flowering cherry theme in fact describe the blossoms as they fall. And only very rarely in this context does the poet make any allusion to their scent.

The blossoms, then, fall within this ideal, clearly circumscribed, zone. An uncountable number of blossoms fall in one point in time. The petals are falling thick, never straying outside the area beneath the tree. The tree, too, is firmly linked, in every concrete and abstract sense, to the place where it puts down its roots.

Any reference to time or physical orientation is generally absent. The poet only asks how, in what manner, the petals are falling. In those rare cases in which he asks himself “where from? where to?” the answer does not come from the tree, but from the wind, or from a personified spring season, both of which often appear to be superior sentient beings.

Just as man knows nothing of his destiny, so also the cherry blossoms know nothing of theirs.

In the Kokin Anthology we do not find examples of wakas which describe the falling of single or scattered cherry blossoms. If this were the case, each single blossom would acquire some sort of direction – moving from a point a to a point b – and thus also acquire some sense of temporal finality. It is this that the poets of the Kokinshu generally sought to avoid.

The first of the two authors of this anthology clearly remembers how as a young boy he used to come home from school in April (the cherry flowering season), and would find that a few scattered petals had settled on his cap, or on his shoulders. It is a curious fact that this experience, which the Japanese people must have had over and over again from the earliest times down to the present day, has never been described in a waka of the Heian times.

The poet-spectator, then, does not know when the flowering has started, nor when it will end; whence come the petals, whither they might be going. His human gaze is fixed on this unfolding, his eyes motionless, and he is often gripped by an ecstasy which annuls his sense of himself as an individual.

This ideal sense of a phenomenon existing outside of time can easily turn into a dream picture or into a figment of imagination, and is then entirely divorced from the reality of the surrounding world. Some examples are given below

In the later Imperial Anthologies the blossoming cherry is sometimes associated with the spring haze, or with clouds.

In keeping with an ancient Japanese aesthetic convention, known as “elegant confusion”, the wakas presented in this anthology have been grouped in what is generally a random order.

Kino Tomonori – Kokinshu 57

hisa kata no hikari nodokeki haru no hi ni shizu gokoro naku hana no chiru ran

in this shimmering spring day,

ah, with ever anxious heart

the blossoms are falling

Ki no Tomonori – Kokinshu 84

iro mo ka mo onaji mukashi ni sakura me do toshi furu hito zo aratamari keru

the radiance of cherry blossoms, their scent,

ever fresh with every passing year –

so man grows old, eternally

Ariwara no Narihira – Kokinshu 53

Yo no naka ni taete sakura no nakari seba haru no kokoro wa nodo kekara mashi

were the cherry tree totally absent from this world,

how carefree would the heart be in spring-time

In these wakas we notice how the authors identify with the flowering cherry to the point in which the two become indistinguishable. The blossoms that fall and vanish are a symbol of the human soul, which is inconstant and ever prone to go astray. The ceaseless descent of blossoms alludes to the poet’s human sense of disquiet.

Anonymous – Kokinshu

kono sato ni tabine si nu beshi sakura bana chiri no magai ni ieji wasurete

in this hamlet I’ll spend the night –

the cherry blossoms falling thick

have made me stray from my homeward path

“Straying” here may allude to the poet’s love for a woman.

Monk Souku – Kokinshu

sakura chiru hana no tokoro wa haru nagara yuki zo furi tsutsu kie gate ni suru

here, amidst flurrying cherry blossoms

it’s as though some spring-time snow

were falling and did not melt

The cherry-image is a totality intimately bound to the topos. It is indivisible and, like a metaphor, cannot be broken up into its components parts. But when seen within a frame, like a picture, the cherry-image as a totality can be moved from one place to the other.

Already in the early, pre-Kokinshu wakas of the 6^th to 8^th centuries, the poet witnessed the end of the flowering season with a sense of loss and desolation.

Ya Kamochi – Man’yoshu

tatsuta yama mitsutsu koekoshi sakurabana / chirika suginamu ware kaeru to ni

the flowering cherries I gazed at speechless

high up on Mount Tatsuta –

will they be shorn and naked before I can see them again?

Ki no Tsurayuki – Kokinshu 117

yadori shite haru no yamabe ni netaru yo wa yume no uchi ni mo hana zo chirikeru

spending the spring night in the foothills

I slept, and deep inside my dream

blossoms fell without cease

The preceding waka by Tsurayuki merits special comment. In the Kokinshu – as we have it today – the preceding waka is not included in the group devoted to the cherry blossom theme, but in a more generic group of compositions on flowers. Indeed, the word sakura, cherry tree, is not present in the waka. It might then be argued that the composition deals with flowers in general. Nevertheless, we find in it a number of elements specific to the cherry blossom theme, the most significant of these being the “visual echo” which the image of the blossoming tree exerts on the viewer. It is a sort of psychic reverberation, which triggers a ripple effect on the subject long after he has ceased to view the real event – something similar to closing one’s eyes after long hours of driving, and still seeing the road. The effect is both compelling and enigmatic.

Let us add that there are no original versions of the Kokinshu (compiled in the 9^th cent.); the most ancient manuscripts date back no further than the 14th and 15th centuries. This gives us no assurance that the order in which the wakas have come down to us is the original one, nor can we be entirely sure that Tsurayuki’s famous introduction to that anthology did not suffer changes or interpolations in later times.

The “visual echo” is also present in the following two wakas.

Ki no Tsurayuki – Kokinshu 87

yama takami mi tsutsu waga koshi sakura bana kaze wa kokoro ni makasu bera nari

After climbing Mt. Hiei, on the way home:

far, by now, from those lofty hills

I still imagine the cherries up there, how the breeze

played with thronging petals

Here again we have the static image of the blossoming cherry unfolding in one spot. The poet retains the memory of that event, desiring it so intensely that it re-visits him as a purely disembodied vision.

How ironic that it should have been a brilliant analytical intellectual like Tsurayuki who suggested the basic aesthetic principles governing how Japanese poets might treat this irrational, animistic experience of his people!

In this waka, as in so many others, the poet Tsurayuki comes across to us readers as being a tireless explorer of the natural world. He is not content to rest on bookish knowledge.

Ki no Tsurayuki – Kokinshu 89

sakura bana chiri nuru kaze no nagori ni ha mizu naki sora ni nami zo tachi keru

the cherry blossoms have fallen in the breeze;

a mere breath now evokes how earlier

they billowed in the sky like a waterless wave

In this celebrated composition Ki no Tsurayuki reaches what is perhaps the acme of complexity of the cherry blossom waka. sakura bana chiru, “the cherry has stopped flowering”, contains an echo of the time, just now over, in which the blossoms were still falling. The waka conjures two mental states in the poet – in the first he watches the blossoms fall; in the second the memory triggers a virtual picture of the event. This and other wakas on the same theme show us how the cherry blossom image often moves into a dreamlike dimension, caused by the poet’s ardent wish to have that flowering always in front of his eyes.

Ki no Tsurayuki – Kokinshu

kaze fukeba kata mo sadamezu chiru hana wo / izu kata e yuku haru tokawa mimu

as I gaze at the crowd of lost petals

fluttering down in the breeze,

I think: where has the spring season gone?

Monaco Sosei – Kokinshu 76

hana chirasu kaze no yadori wa dareka shiru ware ni oshieyo yukite urami mu

who knows the dwelling-place

of blossom-scattering winds:

if some one told me

I’d go to him and complain

Lady Ise – Shuishu

chiru chirazu kikamahoshiki wo / furusato no hana mite kaeru hito mo awanan

are they falling, not falling? this I would ask

of him who has seen them, and returns homesick

from that country steeped in flowers

Monk Jien – Shinkokinshu

chiru chirazu hito mo tazune nu furusato no / tsuyu keki hana ni haru kaze zo fuku

are they falling, not falling? what does he care

who has never been to my home,

where a breath of spring stirs among moist petals

In the Japanese imagination, a flower begins to fade as soon as man sets eyes upon it. His gaze brings the flower into human time, which is finite. In this waka no human being gazes upon the flowers, which thus go on blossoming eternally.

This device, first used effectively by Tsurayuki (Kokinshu 297) in a waka on a different subject, also found favour amongst the poets of a later Imperial Anthology, the Shinkokinshu.

It has been said that, unlike the Chinese, the Japanese people never had the vision of eternity. These two wakas may be seen as contradicting that statement.

In compositions on the cherry blossom theme there usually is no reference to humidity or dampness, because this would stop the petals from flurrying. But there is another waka:

Shunzei no Musume – Private Anthology

sakura chiru yomo no yamakaze uramitemo / harawanu sode no hana no asatsuyu

alas, dark gusts of mountain wind

have stripped the cherries naked;

may the flowering dew of sunrise

spread across my sleeves

Both men and women in those times wore very wide-sleeved robes, so the surface touched by the dew is very large indeed.

Here the poet has followed the unwritten rule that single cherry blossom petals should not be described as drifting from the rest, coming to rest on the clothes or hair of passers-by, and yet wishes to allude to their presence on her sleeves. The only way she can do this is by using the image of the morning dew, asatsuyu.

Lady Ise – Private Anthology

kaki goshi ni miredo mo akazu / sakurabana / ne nagara kaze no fukimo kosanamu

not content to gaze at the flowering cherry

in the hedge, how I wish a wind would blow

the whole tree to me, roots and all!

Lady Ise – Private Anthology

kaki goshi ni chirikuru sakura wo miru yoriwa / negome ni kaze no fuki mo kosa namu

from a cherry in the hedge they come flurrying–

no, I want a gust of wind that will uproot

the whole tree, and bring it straight to me!

Here we have two variations on the same theme, with almost identical purport. Lady Ise’s iconoclastic gesture of whishing to physically move the whole tree closer to her is certainly a creative one. And yet, quite clearly, she has not disturbed the classic unity of the image.

Tsurayuki and the poets of the Kokin Anthology took the cherry blossom waka to its highest point. The living image of the Japanese people was thus already perfectly symbolized in this flowering tree. The theme continued to evolve in later Imperial anthologies, but rather in a deconstructive sense, with poets subtly but not always convincingly breaking the formal and aesthetic perfection achieved by Tsurayuki and his contemporaries. This gradually gave way to compositions characterized by a tired elegance, or by ceaseless variations on a theme that had already given its best in an earlier age.

In later Imperial anthologies we find cherry blossom wakas that no longer appear to follow the canons suggested by Tsurayuki.

Sugawara Michizane – Gosenshu

sakura bana nushiwo wasurenu mononaraba / fukikomu kaze ni kotozute was seyo

cherry blossoms, never forget your master –

lend fragrance to the wind, that it may bring me tidings of you

The author of the preceding composition lived one generation before Tsurayuki. It was during his term as Prime Minister that for the first time in history Japan broke off relations with the Chinese Empire. This was a period in which Japan was seeking its own identity, both politically and culturally, trying to shake off the overpowering influence of its powerful neighbour on the mainland. This thrust also led to the creation, with the Kokinshu, of a national Japanese poetry.

Sugawara Michizane later fell into disgrace and was banished to a remote province of the country. It is not hard for us to see why Tsurayuki may purposely have excluded this waka from the Kokinshu. Indeed, it violates the conventions peculiar to the cherry blossom theme. For similar reasons, perhaps, the following striking composition – by Tsurayuki himself – was also left out:

Ki no Tsurayuki – Shinkokin

hana no ka ni koromo wa fukaku nari ni keri / ko no shita kage no kaze no ma ni ma ni

the scent of blooms deepens in my robe

as I step under this tree’s pearly shade,

amid breathless stirring of the wind

Finally, we present two wakas of a later period, when poets no longer adhered to Tsurayuki’s unwritten cherry blossom canon.

Princess Shokushinnai Shinno – Private Anthology

waga iado no izureno mine no no hana naran / seki iru taki to ochite kuru kana

from what lofty heights

come so many blossoms to my hut?

first as if held back – then,

unforeseen, this sudden cascade!

Cherry blossoms fall in full view of the spectator. In this late waka they come quite abruptly, from an inscrutable source. The poet uses this metaphor to express regret at the collapse of her world. Princess Shokushinnai Shinno lived at a time when Imperial authority was waning rapidly, replaced by that of the Shogun. Here the cherry tree ceases to be a symbol of protection, and rather resembles an aircraft that crashes.

seki iru, “suddenly appearing before me”, suggests that the falling petals come from nowhere, yet have a destination – the spot where the poet is standing.

Fujiwara Ietaka – Shinkokinshu

kono chodo wa ishiru mo shiranu mo tamaboko no yuki sode wa hana no ka zo suru

this is the season when strollers,

familiar or not, pass along the boulevard,

their sleeves fragrant in the blossom-laden air

Confronted with the beauty of the natural world, man experiences mingled feelings of awe and fear, not least because he knows that in his work he can never aspire to such effortless perfection. Perfection in Nature reminds a Japanese of the “darkness in his heart”.

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Teppei Yamada, Professor of Comparative Literatures at Tokyo's Meiji University

Steven Grieco is a poet based in Florence, Italy.

“The Cherry Blossom in Heian waka poetry” is the second chapter of an Anthology of ancient wakas interpreted and translated into Italian and English by Teppei Yamada and Steven Grieco.