Hyakunin Isshu: Meet the Poets
Minamoto no Muneyuki Ason

Meaning

In a mountain village, loneliness deepens in winter. Not only people disappear — the grass too withers away.

Commentary

The poem captures the compounded silence of a mountain hamlet in winter. The word "karu" performs a subtle double duty: it means both "to wither" (as plants do) and "to be absent" (as people withdraw). In one stroke, the natural world and the human world go quiet at the same time, deepening the loneliness beyond what either would produce alone.

Minamoto no Muneyuki Ason held a modest position at court, but his poetry was highly regarded. This poem was included in the imperial anthology Gosen Wakashū and later selected by Fujiwara no Teika for the Hyakunin Isshu, where it stands as one of the collection's most evocative winter poems.

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