Are you telling me to live out this life without meeting you even for a moment as brief as the space between the joints of a cut reed in Naniwa Lagoon?
Lady Ise (c. 872–938) was a poet of the early Heian period. The daughter of Fujiwara no Tsugukage, governor of Ise, she took her name from his post. She served Onshi, consort of Emperor Uda; as a young woman she loved Onshi's brother Fujiwara no Nakahira, but the affair ended when he married another. Later she was favoured by Emperor Uda and bore him a prince, who died young, and with Uda's son Prince Atsuyoshi she had a daughter, Nakatsukasa, who also became a poet. One of the Thirty-Six Poetic Immortals, she has twenty-two poems in the Kokin Wakashū, the most of any woman, and stands beside Ono no Komachi as the great woman poet of her age. This poem is Shin Kokin Wakashū, Love I, 1049; in her own collection it appears as a reply to a man who had grown cold. The reeds of Naniwa Bay have short joints, a finger's width apart. Not even for so short a time will you meet me? 'Reed', 'joint' (fushi) and 'yo' — which means both a reed's joint and 'this life, this love' — are woven together as associated words, so that the language of a landscape carries the whole urgency of love.
She is not asking for a long time. The gap between two joints of a reed would do. And even that, you say, you do not have? By making her wish as small as it can be made, she makes his coldness look all the larger. She does not cling; she asks back. The 'to ya' at the end is a voice in which exasperation, anger, and a hope not yet gone are mixed. It is also a question put to herself: was it to someone who cannot spare so small a time that I had entrusted my whole life?
What drew us most to this poem is how far it shrinks the wish: not a day, not an hour, but the gap between the joints of a reed. So the lyrics measure time not by the clock but by the short moments that live inside love — until you turn around when I call your name, until a falling star is gone, while the wind stirs my fringe. The world is made of moments like those, and in your moments I am not there. The chorus sings the poem as it is and then translates it, and the poem's own 'fushi no ma mo' is repeated like a password. The last wish, too, is spoken in the poem's own unit: one reed-joint of time is enough — come and see me. The bridge paints the inlet of Naniwa with the tide going out and a single reed casting its shadow on the water, and ends on the words 'a poem sent to someone she could not meet'; the chorus that follows is sung with no instruments at all, so that the poem sent a thousand years ago is heard in a bare voice. Then the key rises, the one demand is made once, and the song ends on the smallest wish of all — 'May I call your name?' — a question, as the poem itself ends on a question. 'Maybe next time' is probably not a lie. But for someone they want to see, a person can make a moment. It is not that there is no time; it is that she comes later in the order. This is a song of someone who has noticed that. We made the song itself short and fast.
難波潟（新古今集/伊勢・百人一首19番）Garu JP
「また今度」が 今週も届く
長い時間が ほしいんじゃない
名前を呼んで 振りむくまでの
それくらいで いいのに
蘆の節から 節へ
指でなぞれば 終わる
その あいだほどの 時間
難波潟 短き蘆の ふしの間も
逢はでこの世を 過ぐしてよとや
ほんの少しの 時間さえ
会わずに 生きろと 言うのですか
ふしの間も ふしの間も
それすら くれないの
星が 流れて 消えるまで
風が 前髪を ゆらすあいだ
世界は そんな 一瞬で できてる
あなたの 一瞬に 私はいない
言葉も 花も いらない
約束も しなくていい
まばたきひとつ あなたの顔 見せて
難波潟 短き蘆の ふしの間も
逢はでこの世を 過ぐしてよとや
ほんの少しの 時間さえ
会わずに 生きろと 言うのですか
ふしの間も ふしの間も
それすら くれないの
潮が引いてゆく 難波の入り江
蘆が一本 水に影を落とす
その ひと節に 恋をたくして
逢えない人へ 送った歌
難波潟 短き蘆の ふしの間も
逢はでこの世を 過ぐしてよとや
ほんの少しの 時間さえ
会わずに 生きろと 言うのですか
ふしの間も ふしの間も
それすら くれないの
難波潟 短き蘆の ふしの間も
逢はでこの世を 過ぐしてよとや
ほんの少しの 時間さえ
会わずに 生きろと 言うのですか
ふしの間も ふしの間も
ひと節でいい 会いに来て
過ぐしてよとや……
名前を 呼んでも いいですか
Naniwa-gata (Shin Kokin-shu / Lady Ise, Hyakunin Isshu No. 19) Garu JP
"Maybe next time" arrives again this week
It is not a long time that I want
Just the moment between calling your name and you turning around
That much would be enough
From one joint of a reed to the next
Trace it with a finger and it is over
A time about as long as that
At Naniwa Bay — even for a space as short as between the joints of a reed,
are you telling me to live out this life without meeting you?
Not even the smallest bit of time —
are you telling me to live without seeing you?
Fushi no ma mo, fushi no ma mo (even for that short a space)
Will you not give me even that?
Until a star falls and is gone
While the wind stirs my fringe
The world is made of moments like those
And in your moments, I am not there
I need no words, no flowers
You do not have to promise anything
For one blink, let me see your face
At Naniwa Bay — even for a space as short as between the joints of a reed,
are you telling me to live out this life without meeting you?
Not even the smallest bit of time —
are you telling me to live without seeing you?
Fushi no ma mo, fushi no ma mo (even for that short a space)
Will you not give me even that?
The tide is going out in the inlet of Naniwa
A single reed casts its shadow on the water
Entrusting her love to one joint of it —
a poem sent to someone she could not meet
At Naniwa Bay — even for a space as short as between the joints of a reed,
are you telling me to live out this life without meeting you?
Not even the smallest bit of time —
are you telling me to live without seeing you?
Fushi no ma mo, fushi no ma mo (even for that short a space)
Will you not give me even that?
At Naniwa Bay — even for a space as short as between the joints of a reed,
are you telling me to live out this life without meeting you?
Not even the smallest bit of time —
are you telling me to live without seeing you?
Fushi no ma mo, fushi no ma mo (even for that short a space)
One reed-joint of time is enough — come and see me
Are you telling me to live it out so...
May I call your name?