Saturday, May 4, 2019

Images and ink (39)


Image: Mountaineers carrying kanjiki (traditional Japanese snowshoes) climb Dainichi-yama, Fukui Prefecture. 

Ink: Tanka by Monk Saigyō (1118-1190), the all-terrain poet of the Heian era (translation by William Lafleur, Awesome Nightfall: the Life, Times and Poetry of Saigyō):

Arachiyama
sakashiku kudaru
tani mo naku
kajiki no michi o
tsukuru shirayuki

So steep and dangerous
is Mount Arachi that there's
no path down the valley
till one is made for snowshoes
by white snow fallen over all.

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