Their Imperial Majesties the Emperor and Empress of Japan . . . Poets

Image by Roger Braunstein. Some rights reserved.
From the Mainichi Daily News:
Where rays of sunlight
Filter through the trees I see
In the middle of the path
Carpeted with fallen leaves
A clump of green grass growing.-- Emperor Akihito
I didn't realize that Japan's royal couple were poets. Or that they had been married 50 years. Or that Japan had a 1,000 year-old poetry ceremony.
Shows what I know.
From the Christian Science Monitor:
Japan’s Emperor Akihito and Empress Michiko rejoiced in more than 50 years of life together at Thursday’s annual palace poetry reading ceremony, an annual tradition that goes back more than 1,000 years.
The couple, who married in April 1959, each wrote poems that reflected on walks together in the palace garden around the time of their golden wedding anniversary last year. This year’s theme was “light.”
The poems are in classical Japanese form called waka.
Empress Michiko's poem makes me think of Gerty. (Of course, nearly everything makes me think of Gerty.)
As I walk by your side
The path stretches far ahead
Though ’tis now evening
Yonder in the distance
A glow of a lingering light.-- Empress Michiko