Turned now into rain,
in this sky of cold showers
the drifting clouds go—
and which of them am I to
single out and look upon

Meaning

She has turned to rain; and among the drifting clouds of this showery sky, which am I to pick out and gaze upon?

Commentary

Part One: Aoi

　Even after the memorial services Genji stayed shut up at the Minister of the Left's until the last day. Sorry for him in his unaccustomed idleness, Aoi's brother, the Third Rank Captain, came often to sit with him, talking of the world and of old love affairs. One bleak evening of falling showers he arrived in a grey robe, sat down beside Genji, who was looking out at the frost-killed garden, and spoke this poem half to himself. Genji answered, and the Captain understood again how deep his grief ran.

　"Turned to rain" draws on the Chinese story in which the dead become cloud and rain. "The drifting clouds of a showery sky" takes the scene before them straight into the poem. "Which of them" states the impossibility of telling one from another, standing on the same thought as Genji's poem at the funeral. A brother's grief for his sister is set down as an unceremonious murmur, and that is very much this man's manner.

Author

Murasaki Shikibu

Source

Genji Monogatari

Other

Turned now into rain, in this sky of cold showers the drifting clouds go— and which of them am I to single out and look upon

Turned now into rain,
in this sky of cold showers
the drifting clouds go—
and which of them am I to
single out and look upon