itozakura / koya kaerusa no / ashimotsure
A Weeping Cherry
As I turn away to leave
reeling I'm reeled in
Matsuo Bashō, Spring, 1687 (translated by Andrew Fitzsimons in Bashō - The Complete Haiku of Matsuo Bashō).
Today we started our walk along the Kiso Road section of the Nakasendo Way from a trailhead at the southern gateway of the Kiso Valley.
There were 69 post towns (or 'juku') along the Nakasendo Way. Before leaving Ena this morning, we visited the Hiroshige Museum of Art. The great ukiyo-e artist Utagawa Hiroshige (born Andō Tokutarō, 1797-1858) depicted each of the 69 stations of the Kisokaido.
Between Magomejuku and Tsumagojuku there is the weeping cherry of Ichikoku-tochi, which is more than 250 years old. It didn't have the same effect on me as the weeping cherry Bashō wrote about, but I imagine it might have reeled me in in its younger, lusher days.
Utagawa Hiroshige's depiction of Enajuku.
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