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Description
"I can't play karuta anymore. All 100 cards look completely black to me now".

Taichi as i see him after all the angst of the latest chapters ;_;

The tanka in the right corner is the 69th poem of the Hyakunin Isshu:

Arashi fuku
Mimuro no yama no
Momijiba wa
Tatsuta no kawa no
Nishiki nari keri

The stormwind blowing
The maple leaves
From Mimuro Hill
Turn Tatsuta River
Into the richest brocade.

So i was meditating on the several poems i know, which of course are those the most important in Chihayafuru: "Chihayaburu", "Fuku kara ni" (the one that opens Chihaya vs Taichi final in the Yoshino tournament), "Arashi fuku" (can't remember when, but it somehow stuck in my head) and "Kaze o itami". And i couldn't help noticing that they all have something in common, like it's easy to imagine them describing the same larger scene. The red fallen leaves go through them like a red thread: torn off from the trees by the wild mountain storm in "Fuku kara ni" (Chihaya feels as if this wind is about to hit her when she faces Taichi in that final), the leaves then get blown away in "Arashi fuku" by the same wind - from the Mimuro hill and down onto the Tatsuta river's water; last, in "Chihayaburu", the resulting scenery is seen - the "reachest brocade" of maple leaves flowing on the Tatsuta river is now an image of this "karakurenai", or bright crimson, neverfading love, that even the gods of old have never seen. If Arata is the water (according to Chihaya's vision), deep, fast and calm at the same time (could we compare it to the river?), then Taichi is the wind, and Chihaya's love is the crimson leaves - lol the trio perfectly fits in this symbolic pattern.

But what about the 4th tanka, "Kaze o itami", which strikes Chihaya so painfully in the chapter 139?
Like the storm-torn surf
Crashing on a rock,
This is what is left of me,
My memories of old
Shattered to the core!
There are no leaves, but the waves crashing upon the rocks. This is what i have found about this verse: "Itami (‘damage’) in the first line can also mean ‘pain’, and utsu (‘to beat’) also has a stronger meaning of ‘destroy’. So there is the objective content of waves beating on a rock, but with an implication of personal hurt".

There are no leaves or autumn, but there is the wind again. The wind, "the wild one, the destroyer", that tears off the leaves, blows them wherever it wants, pushes the waves on the rocks - the driving force that sets each scenery in motion. So Taichi is not the wind - he is the wave dashed by the fierce wind upon a rock.
I think the wind here represents feelings - those you can't control. Those intense, raw feelings Chihaya senses the moment she seats across Taichi and sees for the first time stranger in him, something unknown, enigmatic, even scary in the boy she thought she knew so well. This side of him hidden from her - it's his feelings, his passion for her, the wind that about to strike her. The wind that does finally strike her - but with the pain of "Kaze o itami". She is no longer the imperceptive rock: Taichi's actions force her to grow up, to leave her comfort zone and face the real world with its fierce stormwinds. The leaves have been torn away from the branches. Which way the wind will bring them now? Let's see.

Description
"I can't play karuta anymore. All 100 cards look completely black to me now".

Taichi as i see him after all the angst of the latest chapters ;_;

The tanka in the right corner is the 69th poem of the Hyakunin Isshu:

Arashi fuku
Mimuro no yama no
Momijiba wa
Tatsuta no kawa no
Nishiki nari keri

The stormwind blowing
The maple leaves
From Mimuro Hill
Turn Tatsuta River
Into the richest brocade.

So i was meditating on the several poems i know, which of course are those the most important in Chihayafuru: "Chihayaburu", "Fuku kara ni" (the one that opens Chihaya vs Taichi final in the Yoshino tournament), "Arashi fuku" (can't remember when, but it somehow stuck in my head) and "Kaze o itami". And i couldn't help noticing that they all have something in common, like it's easy to imagine them describing the same larger scene. The red fallen leaves go through them like a red thread: torn off from the trees by the wild mountain storm in "Fuku kara ni" (Chihaya feels as if this wind is about to hit her when she faces Taichi in that final), the leaves then get blown away in "Arashi fuku" by the same wind - from the Mimuro hill and down onto the Tatsuta river's water; last, in "Chihayaburu", the resulting scenery is seen - the "reachest brocade" of maple leaves flowing on the Tatsuta river is now an image of this "karakurenai", or bright crimson, neverfading love, that even the gods of old have never seen. If Arata is the water (according to Chihaya's vision), deep, fast and calm at the same time (could we compare it to the river?), then Taichi is the wind, and Chihaya's love is the crimson leaves - lol the trio perfectly fits in this symbolic pattern.

But what about the 4th tanka, "Kaze o itami", which strikes Chihaya so painfully in the chapter 139?
Like the storm-torn surf
Crashing on a rock,
This is what is left of me,
My memories of old
Shattered to the core!
There are no leaves, but the waves crashing upon the rocks. This is what i have found about this verse: "Itami (‘damage’) in the first line can also mean ‘pain’, and utsu (‘to beat’) also has a stronger meaning of ‘destroy’. So there is the objective content of waves beating on a rock, but with an implication of personal hurt".

There are no leaves or autumn, but there is the wind again. The wind, "the wild one, the destroyer", that tears off the leaves, blows them wherever it wants, pushes the waves on the rocks - the driving force that sets each scenery in motion. So Taichi is not the wind - he is the wave dashed by the fierce wind upon a rock.
I think the wind here represents feelings - those you can't control. Those intense, raw feelings Chihaya senses the moment she seats across Taichi and sees for the first time stranger in him, something unknown, enigmatic, even scary in the boy she thought she knew so well. This side of him hidden from her - it's his feelings, his passion for her, the wind that about to strike her. The wind that does finally strike her - but with the pain of "Kaze o itami". She is no longer the imperceptive rock: Taichi's actions force her to grow up, to leave her comfort zone and face the real world with its fierce stormwinds. The leaves have been torn away from the branches. Which way the wind will bring them now? Let's see.