Status Updates From Women Poets of Japan

" [..] My mother is like a shell,
so easily broken.
Yet the fact that I was born
bearing my mother’s shadow
cannot be changed.
She is like a cherished, bitter dream
my nerves cannot forget
even after I awake.
She prevents all freedom of movement.
If I move she quickly breaks,
and the splinters stab me."

Oh boy... Brb, I'm going to sit down and have a mental breakdown.

"I do not consider myself worth counting,
but sometimes even for me
heaven and earth are too small."
- Kujō Takeko

Loving this so much

“A nice young doctor tried to comfort me,
and talked about the joy of giving birth.
Since I know better than he about this matter,
what good purpose can his prattle serve?
Knowledge is not reality.
Experience belongs to the past
Let those who lack immediacy be silent
Let observers be content to observe.”

Punished in the moment of love
I looked back
and saw the jealousy of the Gods
overflow the Milky Way.

— Baba Akiko

From the North send a message
on the wings of the wild geese,
written again and again
by their flight across the clouds.

— Murasaki Shikibu (974-1031)

Does that bird
think of bygone times
as it flies singing
over the spring by the tree
of “exchange-deed leaves”?

— Princess Nukada (7th Century)