A mid-Heian poet known by his post as secretary of Tango province. Denied advancement and reputed to be eccentric, he was once thrown out of a retired emperor's outing to which he had come uninvited. His poetry, however, was strikingly original: he revived Man'yō vocabulary, used colloquial words and composed a sequence of poems for every day of the year. Scorned in his lifetime, he was later admired and counted among the Late Classical Thirty-Six Immortals, with some ninety poems in imperial anthologies.
由良の門を 渡る舟人 かぢを絶え
ゆくへも知らぬ 恋の道かな
Yura no to o wataru funabito kaji o tae / yukue mo shiranu koi no michi kana
Like a boatman crossing the Strait of Yura who has lost his oar and drifts, I do not know where the path of my love will lead.