Hanging scroll featuring a handwritten poem by Ōtomo no Tabito from the Manyōshū, by Ryūsetsu. This is not a copy. - Type: Hanging scroll - Content: From the Manyōshū - Technique: Handwritten - Artist: Ryūsetsu - Size: Approximately 1950mm (height) x 440mm (width) My garden, built with my wife, has grown tall and lush. Volume 3 (452) ----------------------------------------------- My home garden, built with my wife, has trees that are wonderfully flourishing. ----------------------------------------------- This poem, like the one in Volume 3 (451), was composed by Ōtomo no Tabito, after returning to his home in Nara, having completed nearly three years as Dazai-no-sotsu (Governor of Dazaifu). It means that the garden, which he and his wife had created before he went to Dazaifu, had grown into a magnificent garden upon his return. The poem conveys not only the joy of his wife's dedicated efforts bearing fruit, but also Tabito's complex feelings about the strong vitality of the trees and the transience of human life. While the trees have grown so large without him noticing, why is human life so fleeting...? For Tabito, returning to the capital of Nara, which he had longed for, was not only a joy, but also accompanied by the pain of realizing that his wife, who would have celebrated his return with him, was no longer alive.