It's lonely out there sometimes.

うたたねに恋しき人を見てしより夢てふものはたのみそめてき 小野小町

Briefly I slept
and saw
the one I love
Now I place my faith
in this thing called dreams
—Ono no Komachi

The tanka is from book XII of the Kokinshū. It alludes to the then common belief that dreaming of the one you loves meant that they desired you. But there is an undertone of sadness here, that although she once met her lover in a dream, now he will never come.

Ono no Komachi is perhaps the most famous poetess in Japanese history. Almost all of her poems are melancholic, speaking of loneliness, desire, anxiety. In addition to her poetry, she is famous for her beauty. Almost nothing is known about her except for these two things. There are also a lot of legends concerning her. Many of them have to do with her various affairs and lovers. Many more have to do with her trials as an old woman, punishments for her mistreatment of lovers when she was young and beautiful. And some have to do with her death. It is said that after her death her skull remained lying in a field; when the wind would blow through the skull’s eye socket the sound of her anguish echoed across the landscape.

This is a tiny house around town, near one of the many places I work. I see it every now and then when I go this way. On this particular occasion one of the parking spots in the garage was empty, and for some reason this poem leapt into my mind.

	David LaSpina is an American photographer and translator lost in Japan, trying to capture the beauty of this country one photo at a time and searching for the perfect haiku.