Mount Yoshino Blossoms in April

Mount Yoshino Blossoms in April (Photo: Steph Marley)

Sakura of Mount Yoshino in Nara

Famed in poetry: a blossoming symbol of spring

Stephanie Marley Apr 16, 2013 - 1 min read

Mount Yoshino Blossoms in April

O Mount Yoshino! / I would not leave you, I feel / yet, until your flowers fall / would she wait for me?

Kinpusenji, Center of Yoshino Mountain Worship

The emergence of flowers herald spring

Trail to the Top

Where Yoshitsune fled from his brother, left his lover, and Hideyoshi threw hanami parties. Yoshimizu Shrine.

Far in the distance / on lovely Mount Yoshino / cherry blossoms must have opened / for as I gazed / I thought I saw snowdrifts there.

Like the waving sprays / of wisteria boughs / near the swift river at Yoshino / my love for you flows / in no common way.

When I think on this world of ours / all is as scattered blossom / in the end, what is to become of me? I wonder.

O Mount Yoshino! / From last year's trail of broken branches / I would change my path and / on ways yet unseen / pay a visit to the blossoms!

Could I die
under a cherry blossom tree
in full bloom
on a full-moon night
of spring?

- Monk Saigyo (1118 - 1190)

Things to Do in Nara

Stephanie Marley

Stephanie Marley @stephanie.marley

Hello! I'm Steph. I currently live in Fukushima-ken as a member of the JET Programme. Being a big fan of how the contemporary Japanese landscape still relates to pre-modern Japanese literature, religion, and society, I hope to share with you the historic and scenic delights of Tohoku.For more on ...