Ambiguity is rife in the “vocabulary-poor” Japanese language, where there is a wealth of homonyms. At least three poetic conventions depend on such word play. I am most interested in kakekotoba or “pivot-word”: “a scheme of word play in which a series of sounds is used to mean two things at once by different parsings” (Miner, 162). The word “parsing” strikes me as useful for analytical readings, but not necessarily for a reader who is experiencing the poem as opposed to mentally examining it during a first read. Experiencing is a physical event. As such, I think of a pivot-word as the site of an opening, of potential explosion. Further, the moment is more pointed than the shift found in a sonnet’s volta; and the placement of the pivot-word is crucial (and not predetermined). In the following line-by-line transliterations, I have used capitalization to indicate the pivot-word in each of the following poems by Ono no Komachi.

Hiroaki Sato writes in a footnote to his translation: “Tsuki, given here as ‘moon,’ also has the sense of ‘means,’ so the opening part of this poem also says: ‘On this night I have no means of meeting him’ ” (Sato, Japanese Women Poets, 49). The pivot comes early and casts a sense of darkness and dejection on the rest of the poem. It is interesting to note how famous translators have rendered the moon/chance pivot:

The English versions are not as economical and therefore not as intense. There is no pivot moment. In Hirshfield’s choice of “see,” she suggests both literally being able to see someone and the vernacular “seeing,” as in a liaison. Sato implies that there is no chance by using the word “can’t.” Here is my attempt:

no chance of his visit

without the moonlight—

so thinking

within my pounding breast

my heart blazes—

I’ve added the two literal meanings for tsuki, but, sadly, I cannot achieve the compression that the Japanese engenders. Implication may be a satisfying solution, but it does not express the intensity that the double meaning poses. Here is a second attempt:

he will not visit

without the moon casting a light—

so thinking

within my pounding breast

my heart blazes—