Coming and going, I did not
let my eyes leave the plum blossoms—
at dusk I looked on them,
at dawn I looked on them;
yet when did they fade away?

Meaning

Though I would look on the plum blossoms at dusk, and then again at dawn, never letting my eyes leave them, when was it that they faded away while no one was there?

Commentary

Spring Songs, Book One

A poem composed when the plum blossoms in the poet’s own garden had scattered.

Though the poet had watched the plum blossoms without ceasing, they had scattered before he noticed. It may also be read as: though one believed one held another’s heart, without knowing it that heart had shifted to someone else.

Author

Ki no Tsurayuki

Source

Kokin Wakashu

Other

Each spring, the flowing stream I take for blossoms, and reaching for flowers that cannot be plucked, my sleeves are wet with water.
Over the years, the water that becomes the flowers’ mirror— when blossoms scatter down, would one say the water’s mirror has grown clouded?
If only I could transfer the plum’s fragrance to my sleeves and keep it— though spring should pass at once, it would be a keepsake.
Seeing them fall, that should have been all—yet these plum blossoms, so vexing, leave their fragrance lingering on my sleeves.

Coming and going, I did not let my eyes leave the plum blossoms— at dusk I looked on them, at dawn I looked on them; yet when did they fade away?

Coming and going, I did not
let my eyes leave the plum blossoms—
at dusk I looked on them,
at dawn I looked on them;
yet when did they fade away?