2nd Avenue Beauty Gets a Self-Acceptance Pass

Lady Nijo, a once imperial concubine turned Buddhist, named, as the court ladies would be in the 14^th century Japan, after a street (2^nd Avenue), shares the following travel note:

“I had given up my home completely, yet my thoughts quite naturally lingered on the possibility of return…  These thoughts occupied my mind all the way to Osaka Pass…    As I paused to rest, my glance was caught by a cherry tree so heavy with blossoms that I could hardly take my eyes from it. 

Its blossoms detaining travelers

The cherry tree guards the pass

On Osaka Mountain.

I composed this poem as I continued <…>  at dusk I saw prostitutes seeking companions for the night and realized that this too formed a part of life.”

The irony of ordinary perfection:  an ex-concubine 2^nd Ave. beauty, now a wandering Buddhist, is arrested by a sight of beauty of Osaka Pass, and gets a pass into self-acceptance.

References:

The Confessions of Lady Nijo, 1973, p. 182-183).