小鳥の歌 19

[reynardine.livejournal.com]

Where are the colors?
How late the summer lingers!
The leaves still verdant
A season out of season
A month when there are no gods

This one is rather hard to see: a mother, sighing, I bend down to start cleaning -- to Where are the colors? It actually started as where are the CHILDREN, but the poem then turned into a comment about the leaves remaining green this far into October Kannazuki (神無月) short for kaminashizuki "the month when there are no gods", commonly called the "godless month" in the Japanese calendar. The eight million or so native gods of Japan all travel to Izumo taisha (the Grand Izumo Shrine) in October, leaving the rest of the country "godless".