Words Are Ageless

randomverbiage:

I was thinking about Japanese poetry the other day — seriously, when am I not thinking about Japanese poetry? — when I came across the following sentence:

She also counts among the Thirty-six Poetry Immortals.

Did someone say Thirty-six Poetry Immortals?

This may be the coolest thing I’ve ever heard.

The poetry immortal in question is Ono no Komachi, a poet of considerable skill, renowned for her striking beauty (so much so that her name entered the language as a synonym for “serious hotness”) and the subject of legends and lies, Noh plays and speculation.

And then, of course, there’s her poetry:

Although I come to you constantly
over the roads of dreams,
those nights of love
are not worth one waking touch of you.