Around this lonely house, overgrown with layer upon layer of weeds, no one comes to visit — and yet autumn has come.
Egyō Hōshi (the monk Egyō, late 10th century) was a monk-poet who served as lecturer in Harima, and is one of the Thirty-Six Poetic Geniuses of the Middle Antiquity (Chūko Sanjūrokkasen). This poem was composed at Kawara-no-in — what had become of the lavish great mansion of Minamoto no Tōru, son of Emperor Saga — when poets gathered there to compose on the topic "autumn comes to a ruined dwelling." The finest garden in Japan, which had once recreated the scenery of Shiogama in Mutsu and even had seawater carried in, lay in ruins, overgrown with yaemugura (creeping vines grown thick in layer upon layer).
"No one comes to visit, but autumn, at least, has come faithfully." It seems a poem lamenting desolation and loneliness, yet in the closing line "aki wa kinikeri" (autumn has come) there is a faint consolation and the surprise of discovery. The seasons visit even forsaken places, without favor — a sensibility that leads toward the later aesthetics of wabi-sabi. Turn the lament inside out, and autumn looks like the one faithful guest.
To a ruined dwelling where no one comes, autumn alone came — we reinvented the original poem as a song that welcomes autumn as a "guest." In the chorus, the guest is sung as "marebito": the word Japan has used since ancient times for a rare visitor who comes from afar and brings good fortune. "Loneliness isn't having no guests; it's shutting up the room that no guests come to" — so at the end, we open the window and say "welcome in." We turned a song of solitude into a song about how to host solitude.
八重葎（拾遺集/恵慶法師・百人一首47番）Garu JP
チャイムが鳴らない 休日の部屋
通知も来ない 午後三時
カレンダーの予定は 白いまま
それでも窓の外 風が変わった
誰も来ないと 思ってたのに
一番律儀な 客が来た
八重葎 しげれる宿の さびしきに
人こそ見えね 秋は来にけり
誰も来なくても 秋は来る
約束もなしに 毎年来る
窓を開けて 迎えよう
今年も来てくれた 客人を
お茶を淹れて ベランダに出る
日ざしと虫の声 部屋に上がり込む
ひとりじゃないな 今日のところは
客が三人も 来てるんだから
寂しさってのは 客が来ないことじゃなく
客の来ない部屋を 閉め切ることだ
八重葎 しげれる宿の さびしきに
人こそ見えね 秋は来にけり
千年前 荒れた屋敷で
同じことに 気づいた人がいる
草だらけの庭にも 分け隔てなく
秋は来ていた
かつての豪邸 八重葎
訪う人も 絶えた庭
それでも秋は 忘れずに
その年も門を くぐってきた
八重葎 しげれる宿の さびしきに
人こそ見えね 秋は来にけり
誰も来なくても 秋は来る
千年前の庭にも この部屋にも
窓を開けて 迎えよう
いらっしゃい って言ってみよう
人こそ見えね……
秋は来にけり
Yaemugura (Shui-shu / Priest Egyo, Hyakunin Isshu No. 47) Garu JP
The doorbell never rings — a day off at home
No notifications — three in the afternoon
The calendar stays blank and white
And yet, outside the window, the wind has changed
I thought nobody would come —
but the most faithful guest arrived
Around this ruined house, overgrown with vines,
no one comes to visit — and yet, autumn has come
Even if nobody comes, autumn will
Every year, without a promise, it comes
Let's open the window and welcome in
the honored guest who came again this year
I brew some tea and step out to the balcony
Sunlight and insect songs come up into the room
I'm not alone — not today, at least
Three guests are already here
Loneliness isn't that nobody comes —
it's keeping an unvisited room shut tight
Around this ruined house, overgrown with vines,
no one comes to visit — and yet, autumn has come
A thousand years ago, in a ruined mansion,
someone realized the very same thing
Into that garden gone to weeds, without distinction,
autumn had come
A once-great villa, buried in vines
A garden where visitors ceased to call
And still, autumn did not forget —
that year too, it came in through the gate
Around this ruined house, overgrown with vines,
no one comes to visit — and yet, autumn has come
Even if nobody comes, autumn will
To that thousand-year-old garden — and to this room
Let's open the window and welcome it in
and try saying: "Welcome, come on in"
No one comes to visit……
and yet, autumn has come