Yamanoue no Okura

(c. 660 - c. 733)

At the age of forty-two in 701, Yamanoue no Okura traveled as a scribe on an embassy to the Tang court in China, where he remained for seven years and composed a poem that speculated that “the pines on the shore” of Japan “must long for our return.” While later serving as governor of the province of Chikuzen from 726 to 732, Okura became involved in the salon of fellow poet Ōtomo no Tabito. Both men’s works are contained in an eighth-century anthology called the Collection of Ten Thousand Leaves.