A book like a jewel - Ariake

Don't you cut the brush
Growing on the riverbank
High above Saho River;
Leave it as it is,
So when spring comes araound
We'll have a place to hide.

Lady Ôtomo of Sakanue

While I asked myself

Whether you might be coming
Or I might go there,
The hesitant moon appeared,
And I slept, the door unlocked.

Anonymous

More than the color
It is the fragrance I find
A source of delight.
Whose sleeve might have brushed against
The plum tree beside my house?

Anonymous

Pictures and poems are taken from the book Ariake - Poems of Love and Longing by the Women Courties of ancient Japan, San Francisco 2000. Illustrations by Rae Grant, foreword by Liza Dalby.