Japanese Love Poems

I am uploading very awesome pictures and videos from my day... to post tomorrow!
Too excited to delay.

But for now...a few years back I received a book of poetry entitled
Love Poems from the Japanese
Translated by Kenneth Rexroth
Edited by Sam Hamill

Here are some of the poems I love from this book.

Who knows
that in the depth of the ravine
of the mountain of my hidden heart
a firefly of my love is aflame.
- Abutsu-Ni


Gossip grows like weeds
In a summer meadow.
My girl and I
Sleep arm in arm.
-Kakinomoto No Hitomaro


The colored leaves
Have hidden the paths
On the autumn mountain.
How can I find my girl,
Wandering on ways I do not know?
-Kakinomoto No Hitomaro


Cats making love in the temple
But people would blame
An man and wife for mating in such
a place.
-Kawai Chigetsu-Ni


Doesn't he realize
that I am not
like the swaying kelp
in the surf,
where the seaweed gatherer
can come as often as he wants.
-Ono No Komachi


Love me. At this moment we
Are the happiest
People in the world.
-Marichiko


Come at last to this point
I look back on my passion
And realize that I
Have been like a blind man
Who is unafraid of the dark.
-Yosano Akiko


Some day in six inches of
Ashes will be all
That's left of our passionate minds,
Of all the world created
By our love, its origin
And passing away.
- Marichiko


Why should I be bitter
About someone who was
A complete stranger
Until a certain moment
In a day that has passed.
-Saigyo


From the beginning
I knew meeting could only
End in parting, yet
I ignored the coming dawn
And I gave myself to you.
-Fujiwara No Teika


Life, like a thread piercing
through jewels,
if you must break,
break now!
If I live any longer
I will weaken and show my
hidden love.
-Princess Shikishi


I hold your head tight
Between my thighs and
Against your mouth and
Float away forever in
An orchid boat
On the River of Heaven.
-Marichiko


I shall hide myself
within the moon of the spring night,
after I have dared to reveal
my love to you.
-Chino Masako

crescent moon tonight