Year-end Presentations of Waka Poems

Year-end Presentation of Five Waka Poems by His Majesty the Emperor

Monument for the Fallen Seamen

Beyond the monument
Commemorating seamen
Lost at war,
The sea is visible -
Peaceful and calm.

At the Institute of Physical and Chemical Research

Researchers
Working hard at this Institute,
Using novel instrument -
Among them I find
Some from foreign lands.

The Twenty-fifth Olympic Games

Eager to know
How our athletes are making out,
Each morning
I watch the Olympic news
On the TV screen.

Xian

On the same soil
Once trodden by our countrymen,
We are standing today
After more than
A thousand years.

Shanghai

With smiling faces
We were greeted in Shanghai
As we passed in cars
Through lit-up streets.

Year-end Presentation of Three Waka Poems by Her Majesty the Empress

Our Granddaughter

On tender leaves of grass
In the sunlit field of spring,
Carefully,
I placed
The babe.

Paulownia Flowers

Unaware that the nation
Would soon face defeat,
I, a child evacuee,
Was absorbed, gathering
Bell-shaped paulownia flowers.

The Space shuttle

How tender is the act
Of calling a person by name,
An astronaut in space
Is calling the name of another
On earth.

Notes:
Paulownia Flowers:
Poem presented to His Majesty, the Emperor, on the given theme, Paulownia Flowers, for the month of June, 1992. The place of evacuation was Tatebayashi, Gunma Prefecture.

The Space Shuttle: cf. reference material Reference Material for Her Majesty's poem, The space Shuttle.

Excerpt from the Press Release on the Occasion of Her majesty the Empress' Birthday, 1992.

Q. What things or events impressed you strongly during this past year?
The work of Ms. Sadako Ogata, United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, the Olympic events and the "Song of the Birds" which was played at its closing cermony, the conversations between the astronaut on the space shuttle and his NASA supporting crew on earth, calling out to each other by their names, while the various experiments were conducted in space.