47. Kinto picks a plum branch in the moonlight

Fujiwara no Kinto (966-1041), aka Shijo-dainagon, was a poet that was highly admired by his contemporaries. He was also a musician, a scholar, and a Heian court official. Snow has fallen on the buildings of the imperial palace during the night, and Kinto has gone out into the moonlit courtyard to pluck and admire a flowering plum branch. His verse reads: "In the midst of glimmering whiteness, among the night’s moon shadows - I part the snow and pluck plum blossoms."
(published January 1887)