Poetry Tuesday: Poem on Airing Books on a Starlit Night

We unfasten the chest

Of books and

Offer this gift

To the stars who meet

Only tonight

                                                                                        -Emperor Go-Youzei, trans. Ann Yonemura*

Written on the custom of airing books on the evening of the Tanabata festival, celebrating the once-a-year meeting of the Weaving Maiden (Vega) and the Ox-Herd Boy (Altair), from the Chinese legend. 


*Found in Twelve Centuries of Japanese Art from the Imperial Collections, p. 70