Kagayaka ni

輝やかに/わが行くかたも/恋うる子の
　　　在るかたも指せ/黄金向日葵
(与謝野鉄幹 1873-1935)

kagayaka ni / waga yuku kata mo / kouru ko no
　　　aru kata mo sase / kogane higuruma
(Yosano Tekkan 1873-1935)

brightly point
at me walking,
and where the
　　　girl I love is,
　　　golden sunflower


I mentioned before that I'm finding the tanka more difficult than the haiku, and I hope it's clear that I'm speculating sometimes. With this poem I'm speculating too. I wasn't too sure about 'kata' but assumed 'waga yuku kata' is 'me walking', whereas 'aru kata' is 'where something is'. I've made a big assumption that 'ko' means 'girl', when it could also mean 'child, and in the famous poem I linked to in the last entry, it was used by Yosano about himself (obviously male). So consider yourself properly warned that this may not be the correct translation, or if you want to put me right, acknowledge that I didn't present it 100% confidently! One final point to note about the language is that the kanji for sunflower used here, '向日葵', are normally pronounced 'himawari', and 'higuruma' usually has the kanji, '日車'. But poets can make these aesthetic choices, and especially in older writing, the use of kanji is not so standardised.

Even if I'm not sure whether it's correct, I enjoy the version of this poem I've arrived at. The sunflower, held back by Yosano until the end of the poem, becomes the go-between for the two lovers, encouraging the poet on his journey. Incidentally, Yosano Tekkan married Yosano Akiko who has since become more famous than him, but she died after my cut-off point for this blog, so I won't be looking at her poems. Many of these are available on the net anyway, including her most famous tanka with its confident female sexuality at the top of this page, and an English translation of the anti-war poem '君死にたもうことなかれ' (kimi shinitamou koto nakare).