For my birthday, I picked up a great book on poetry by the 12th century lady-in-waiting, Lady Izumi, called izumi shikibu (和泉式部) in Japanese. Her life has been an interest of mine, and I was happy to find good quality translation of her works.1 The book has a collection of her poems spanning various topics, including this one for winter:
| Japanese | Romanization | English |
| 待つ人の | Matsu hito no | If the one I’ve waited for |
| 今も来たらば | ima mo kitara ba | came now, what should I do? |
| いかがせむ | ikaga sen | This morning’s garden filled with snow |
| 踏ままく惜しき | fumamaku oshiki | is far too lovely |
| 庭の雪かな | niwa no yuki ka na | for footsteps to mar. |
Because the old Heian Period aristocracy was such a closed society, and the public scrutinized everything you said and did, romantic meetings often took at night, and only after careful arrangement. Lady Izumi, according to the translators, was likely stood up for some reason after waiting all night, but she tries to take it in stride with this poem.
1 The best part about the book is that each poem comes with the original Japanese at the end of the book, so you can recite it as is, or look it up in Japanese.
Gleanings in Buddha-Fields 