Ingredients:
Here is a collection of Japanese love poetry written out in haiku form. Each one encapsulates a lovely idea. Some of these ideas are familiar, but many are not, unless of course you're Japanese!
Directions:
Prince Hozumi
That rascal of Love
Whom I thought I’d had locked away
Now jumps out at me.
Kakinomoto No Hitomaro
When I gathered flowers
From the top, I was drenched with dew
By lower branches.
Kakinomoto No Hitomaro
Gossip grows like weeds
In summer grass where, with my girl,
I sleep arm in arm.
Princess Nukada
My longing heart leaps
At the wind that rattles my door
Thinking it is you.
Oyakeme
The road is dark now.
So do not go, but stay till moonrise
That I may watch you.
Otomo No Yakamochi
Better not to meet
Than to wake from dreams and reach for
Hands that are not there.
Otomo No Yakamochi
But a little while
Together, we thought our love would
Last a thousand years.
Ono No Komachi
I wake wanting you
My breasts heave in the dark of night
And my heart burns up.
Ono No Komachi
Doesn’t he realize
That I’m not like drifting seaweed
To take when he wants.
Saigyo
Should I be bitter
About one who was a stranger
Till a moment passed.
Lady Ise
"The pillow knows all",
So we slept without one, but still
My name spreads like dust.
Lady Izumi Shikibu
The pillow knows all
But it don’t know and don’t you tell
Of the dream we shared.
Yosano Akiko
Fate controls our lives
And all things end, so take my breasts
Alive in your hands.
Bunya No Asayasu
In a gust of wind
The white dew on the autumn grass
Breaks like a necklace.
Anonymous
Beyond the twin seas,
I long for the mountain of bliss
Untouched by the tides.
