The moment it blows, the autumn grasses and trees wither. No wonder the wind sweeping down from the mountain is called a 'storm' — the wild one.
Early Heian period. Fun'ya no Yasuhide is one of the Six Poetic Geniuses (Rokkasen), alongside Ariwara no Narihira and Ono no Komachi, yet he was never blessed with court rank, and Ki no Tsurayuki judged him as "skilled with words, but the substance does not match the style" — a "poet of technique." And yet that single poem of technique has survived a thousand years and still appears in school textbooks today. The storm passes, but words remain — this poem itself is the finest proof of that.
The moment it blows, the autumn grasses and trees wither — so no wonder the mountain wind is called arashi, a "storm" (which also sounds like arashi, "to ravage"). A poem of wit built on a play with kanji: the characters for "mountain" and "wind" combine to form the character for "storm." Fun'ya no Yasuhide of the Six Poetic Geniuses was never blessed with court rank and was judged by Tsurayuki in the kana preface to the Kokin Wakashū as "skilled with words, but the substance does not match the style" — a "poet of technique." The irony is that only that technique survived a thousand years — the storm passes, but words remain. In the modern part we reread this as "a storm of words that withers people" (rumors, backbiting, cold stares), turn it around with "storms carry seeds too," and arrive at the resolve "I want to be the wind that carries seeds." Yasuhide's wisdom — taming fear by giving it a name — is inherited by the girls of today as a way of dealing with the storm of words.
Faced with a raging storm, the poet pulls back the curtain — "ah, so that's why it has this name" — and smiles. By naming something, you tame the terrifying thing just a little — we read Yasuhide's wit as exactly this "wisdom of facing the world through words." In the modern part, we lay that wisdom over another storm that withers people — rumors, backbiting, cold stares. But what a storm carries is not only dead leaves; it also brings seeds from distant meadows. So then, I want to be a wind that carries seeds rather than a wind that withers. Girls of the generation most exposed to the storm of words sing sweetly in unison inside a heavy-metal gale — that gap itself is this song's answer: "lift your face and smile in the middle of the storm."
吹くからに（文屋康秀・百人一首22番）／Garu JP
吹き下ろす風 ひと吹きごとに
秋の草木が うなだれていく
山から風と 書いて嵐
なるほど よく言ったもんだ
しおれた野原を 見渡しながら
言葉の謎が ひとつ解ける
吹くからに 秋の草木の
しおるれば 音を立てて
むべ山風を 嵐というらん
荒らしていくから 嵐なんだと
吹くからに 秋の草木の
しおるれば 音を立てて
言葉あそびで 謎を解いて
笑ってみせた 歌人がいた
心ない声の ひと吹きごとに
うつむいていく 人がいる
うわさ 陰口 冷たい目
なるほどこれも 嵐なんだ
枯らすつもりの 言葉の風に
折れそうな日も あるけれど
吹くからに 心の草木は
しおれても 根っこは残る
嵐が運ぶのは 枯れ葉だけじゃない
荒れた土にも 次の芽が出る
言葉ひとつで 人は枯れて
言葉ひとつで また生き返る
だったらわたしも 吹くのならば
種を運ぶ 風になりたい
千年前の しゃれの効いた
三十一文字も 風に乗って
吹くからに 秋の草木の しおるれば
むべ山風を 嵐というらん
吹くからに 時代の野原を
吹き抜けて 今日まで届く
言い得て妙な その一言は
嵐より長く 生き残った
草木は毎年 生え変わるけど
言葉は千年 枯れないままで
だから選ぼう 口に出す風を
枯らす風より 育てる風を
吹くからに 世界は揺れる
だとしても 顔を上げて
むべ山風を 嵐というらん
名前をつければ 怖くないから
種を乗せた 風に変えて
笑ってみせよう あの歌人みたいに
嵐というらん…… 嵐というらん……
Fuku Karani (Funya no Yasuhide, Hyakunin Isshu No. 22) / Garu JP
The wind sweeps down, and with every gust
The autumn grasses bow their heads
Mountain and wind, written together, spell "storm"
Well said, indeed — I have to admit
Gazing out across the withered field
One riddle of words comes untangled
The moment it blows, the autumn grasses
Wither and bend with a rustling cry
So they must call this mountain wind a storm
Because it ravages — that's why it's called the storm
The moment it blows, the autumn grasses
Wither and bend with a rustling cry
He solved the riddle with a play on words
A poet who smiled as he sang
With every gust of heartless voices
Someone lowers their head
Rumors, backbiting, cold stares
I see — this, too, is a storm
Words meant to wither me
Some days they nearly break me, and yet
The moment it blows, the grasses of the heart
May wither, but the roots remain
The storm carries more than dead leaves
Even ravaged soil sends up new sprouts
A single word can wither a person
A single word can bring them back to life
So if I too am going to blow
Let me be a wind that carries seeds
A witty poem from a thousand years ago
Thirty-one syllables, riding the wind
The moment it blows, the autumn grasses wither
So they must call this mountain wind a storm
The moment it blows, across the fields of time
It sweeps on through and reaches us today
That one perfectly spoken line
Has outlived every storm
Grasses grow anew each year
But words stay green a thousand years
So let us choose the wind we breathe out
A wind that grows things, not one that withers
The moment it blows, the world may shake
Even so, lift up your face
So they must call this mountain wind a storm
Once you give it a name, it cannot scare you
Turn it into a wind that carries seeds
And smile — just like that poet did
So they must call it the storm... the storm...