A mid-Heian nobleman, great-grandson of Emperor Saga, who rose slowly through provincial posts before being appointed Councillor in 947 at the age of sixty-eight. Little is known of his activity as a poet, and only four of his poems appear in imperial anthologies, all in the Gosenshū. His Hyakunin Isshu poem, drawing on an anonymous poem in the Kokinshū, plays on the bamboo grass of Ono's moor and the word for enduring in secret to express a love that can no longer be hidden.
浅茅生の 小野の篠原 忍ぶれど
あまりてなどか 人の恋しき
The bamboo-grass field of Ono, sparse with cogon grass — though I try to hide my feelings, I cannot hold them back; why do I long for you so?
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