Looking as though they were tied to the branches are painted representations of decorated poem slips (tanzaku) bearing 31-syllable waka verses drawn from some of the most revered anthologies of Japanese literature.

While the poems speak of the beauty of the spring and autumn seasons respectively, the trees themselves seem to go head to head visually, challenging the viewer to declare whether the delicate, pale pink petals of the cherry or the bold red leaves of the maple are the more beautiful.

The placement of each poem across the panels was carefully planned according to its content or imagery. Waka poems were selected from all but five of the twenty-one imperial anthologies collectively called the Chokusenshu, which contains verses from the 10th to the 15th century. On their respective screen, the words sakurabana (cherry blossoms) and momijiba (maple leaves) appear in each poem, producing a beautiful cadence when all are read together.

In addition, a handful of poems on the screens are special celebratory poems that wish the emperor long life and the continuation of the imperial line for a “thousand [meaning innumerable] years.” These verses are placed in prominent locations: on the far right of the Flowering Cherry screen and at the end on its sixth panel, and again at the very end, on the sixth panel of the Autumn Maples screen at the far left. This last poem reads:

    Bathed with the
Blessings of rains and dews
    The maple leaves:
Imbued a thousand times—the number
Of the thousand years of our lord!

_{Tosa Mitsuoki. Flowering Cherry and Autumn Maple with Poem Slips (detail), 1654/81. Kate S. Buckingham Endowment.}