"life is just a party and parties weren't meant to last"

Possibly inappropriate responses to 1100-year-old poems: When a female singer/entertainer seeing off a male friend traveling to Kyushu* for a hot-spring cure writes (in Kokinshu #387):

inochi dani kokoro ni kanau mono naraba nani ka wakare no kanashikaramashi

If only our lifespans somehow corresponded to     our hearts' desires, would separation still be something so agonizing?

I want to tell her to ask the elves about what farewells are like when you're immortal. Go ahead, ask them. I dare you.


* An arduous journey that suggests he was doing it for health reasons -- and was in serious condition.

---L.