[Preface]
On the thirteenth day of the first month of the second year of Tenpyo, we gathered at the residence of the governor-general of Dazaifu (Otomo no Tabito) and held a banquet.
It is the auspicious first month of spring; the air is clear and pure, and the wind is soft and gentle. The plum blossoms are as white as the powder of a woman before her mirror, and the orchids are as fragrant as a scent bag worn at the waist. Not only that: at dawn clouds hang over the peaks, and the pines, wrapped in clouds like fine silk, seem to hold up canopies; at dusk mist gathers on the mountaintops, and birds, shut in the curtain of mist, lose their way in the woods. In the garden this year's butterflies dance, and in the sky last year's geese fly home.
So, with heaven for our roof and earth for our mat, we sit knee to knee and pass the cup. Everyone is so at ease that words are forgotten, and our hearts open to the world outside. Free and unconstrained, we are merry and content. If not through writing, how could we say all that is in our hearts? In China too there are poems on falling plum blossoms. Past and present are the same. Come, let us take the plums of the garden as our theme and compose a few short poems.
[Poem by the host (Otomo no Tabito)]
In my garden the plum blossoms fall. Is it snow drifting down from the far heavens?
The era name Reiwa was taken from this preface: "in the auspicious (rei) first month of spring, the air is clear and the wind is gentle (wa)." It was the first time an era name was drawn from a Japanese classic. At this banquet of officials in Kyushu, thirty-two people each composed a poem on plums, trying to express in Japanese verse the beauty of a flower that had come from China.