One of the most beautiful and poignant tanka I have ever read:
Around the time of Izumi Shikibu’s daughter Naishi’s death, snow fell and melted away:
Why did you vanish
into empty sky?
Even the fragile snow
when it falls
falls in this world.
……Izumi Shikibu
It took me a moment to realize that Naishi was cremated.
Jane Kohut-Bartels
Copyrighted, 2019
