Hyakunin Isshu: Meet the Poets
Priest Ryōzen

Meaning

Feeling lonely, I stepped outside to gaze at the view — and everywhere I looked, it was the same twilight of autumn.

Commentary

The poem enacts its own subject — loneliness so intense it drives the speaker outside, only to find no relief. "Everywhere the same" (izuku mo onaji) is quietly devastating: there is no escape, no contrast, only an endless expanse of autumnal solitude. The autumn evening (aki no yūgure) was one of the most emotionally charged images in classical poetry.

Priest Ryōzen lived as a recluse at Ōhara, north of Kyoto. His poetry captures the quality of solitude chosen for spiritual reasons — neither despair nor flight, but a confrontation with the emptiness of the world. His style and sensibility deeply influenced later poet-monks and the tradition of wabi aesthetics.

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