Illustrated Legends of the Kitano Shrine (Kitano Tenjin Engi) (detail). Kamakura period (1185–1333), 13th century. Japan. Handscroll; ink and color on paper; 11 3/4 x 28 ft. 3 3/4 in. (29.8 x 863 cm). Fletcher Fund, 1925 (25.224b).
Several months later, Michizane's allies in Kyoto receive a letter with poems from their persecuted colleague. Kino Haseo, Michizane's best friend, reads aloud to his fellows a poem that captures the grief and suffering of life in exile:
It was not the wind—the oil is gone.
I hate the lamp that will not see me through the night.
How hard—to make ashes of the mind, to still the body!
I rise and move into the moonlight by the cold window.
Haseo reads and rereads the poem, unable to comprehend how a man with such wisdom, grace, and elegance could be so wrongly and maliciously maligned. Next to Haseo grows a blossoming plum tree, Michizane's favorite tree and a symbol of his presence. Unbeknownst to the gathering, this poem would be one of Michizane's last, for shortly thereafter, humiliated and dispirited, this loyal and talented minister died of a broken heart far from home on February 25, 903.
