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The silence in the large tatami room is absolute. About two dozen people, kneeling in the formal seiza style, face each other in pairs on the mats. To us observers, they may as well be statues. No one moves. All are dressed in elegant kimono, ranging from the muted tones worn by the elderly women to the bright patterns and flowing sleeves worn by their daughters, both set off by the men's gray and black hakama, stiff pleated skirts worn over kimono. Everybody is staring intently at the floor, where a number of small white cards are laid out in neat rows between each couple.
An elderly man, also attired in hakama, sits on a cushion at one end of the room surveying this scene. He holds more cards in his outstretched hand. Suddenly, he begins to chant.
"Waga koromode ni . . ." His voice is old and harsh, and he strains to produce the high pitch required at the end of each line.
"Yuki wa furl tsutsu . . " The last syllable trails off into silence. Still no one moves.
"Naniwa gata . . ." Suddenly, just on the sound of ga, the players explode into movement and noise. Perhaps the old man is still chanting, but it is impossible to make out what he is saying above the din. Long kimono sleeves are waving about. Cards have been tossed into the air and some land on the other side of the room. Everybody is shouting. People are moving around to retrieve the scattered cards, holding them up in triumph. The bustle of noisy activity continues for about a minute, during which everybody gradually restores everything to its correct position, putting the cards back into their neat rows and tucking their kimono sleeves into place. The room becomes still again.
The cycle begins anew. "Awade kono yo wo . . ."
What was in the chant that caused such an eruption? Naniwa gata, "the marsh at Naniwa," is poetry, a line of a poem penned by Lady Ise (ca 877-938) about 1,100 years ago. A love poem, passed down through the centuries in writing and orally, it still lives today, more than a millennium after the day she created it. Everybody in...