Palindromic Poems (Kaibunka): Osaka

Torii Kiyotsune Japanese

Not on view

Here the actor Nakamura Kumetaro stands reading a book of palindromes in front of a window that looks out on a plum tree in bloom. The poem, a palindrome, at the top of the print reads:

Oshima to mo
tsui ni itsumo to
yuku haru wa
kuyu to mo tsui ni
itsumo tomeshi wo

"Yearn for me," it says,
but somehow it has already passed,
spring, the mists I thought still
lingering
have suddenly cleared.

Palindromic Poems (Kaibunka): Osaka, Torii Kiyotsune (Japanese, active ca. 1757–1779), Left sheet of a triptych of woodblock prints; ink and color on paper, Japan

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