Ono no Komachi

Ono no Komachi translations

These are my modern English translations of the ancient Japanese poems of Ono no Komachi, who wrote tanka (also known as waka) and was renowned for the beauty of her verse as well as for her physical beauty. Komachi is best known today for her pensive, melancholic and erotic love poems. Her bio follows the poems.

If fields of autumn flowers
can shed their blossoms, shameless,
why can’t I also frolic here —
as fearless, wild and blameless?
—Ono no Komachi, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

These are poems about about rain, storms, ice, snow, sleet and other forms of weather. Some of the poems are translations of the fabulous Japanese poet Ono no Komachi. 

Dark-bosomed clouds
pregnant with heavy thunder ...
the water breaks
—Michael R. Burch