autumn dusk—
a red sock
goes missing
Comment: a ku with warm and familiar tones set in autumn (aki 秋). The sky turns red (akai 赤い) as the night is slowly yet inexorably approaching; in this context, the poet checks her wardrobe and realizes that a sock of the same color is actually missing, giving shape to a simple, effective fueki ryūkō 不易流行 (‘constancy and change’). A juxtaposition (toriawase 取り合わせ) between human events and nature enhanced by a well balanced structure. The em dash (—) placed at the end of line 1 makes this change of perspective clear also on a visual level.
Deceptively simple but the poem is actually full of resonance, with a tinge of samishii, because of a missing sock, because it may echo back to something many years ago.
Alan
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Thank you for your meaningful comment, Alan!
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