Fujiwara Iyetaka writes,
"To those who only pray for the cherries to bloom,
How I wish to show the spring
That gleams from a patch of green
In the midst of the snow-covered mountain-village!"
In other words, while there are some who anticipate the coming of spring, Spring in its entirety is implicit in a tiny, seemingly insignificant "patch of green."
Daisetz T. Suzuki comments,
"Here is just a feeble inception of life power as asserted in the form of a little green patch, but in it he who has an eye can readily discern the spring shooting out from underneath the forbidding snow. It may be said to be a mere suggestion that stirs his mind, but just the same it is life itself and not its feeble indication. To the artist, life is as much here as when the whole field is overlaid with verdue and flowers. One may call this the mystic sense of the artist" (Zen and Japanese Culture, 26).
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