While I waited on,
at every blowing of the
withering wind, days
of not knowing how you were
have gone by, and gone by since

Meaning

Waiting at every gust of the withering wind, I have let the days go by without ever knowing how you were.

Commentary

Part One: Sakaki

　Ever since he had heard the Controller murmur a line of Chinese verse aimed at him, Genji had felt the weight of public feeling and had let a long time pass without writing to Oborozukiyo. As the first winter showers came on, this poem arrived from her. Taken with both the season and the care she must have needed to write in secret, he kept the messenger, chose Chinese paper, took up a fresh brush, and wrote a reply.

　"Kogarashi" is the hard wind of early winter. "At every blowing" is each gust—she has taken the sound for a visitor again and again. "Obotsukanasa" is not knowing how someone is. Some read a pun on the word for a robe, which would work with the wind. It voices a grievance without giving offense, and it has force enough to draw an answer.

Author

Murasaki Shikibu

Source

Genji Monogatari

Other

While I waited on, at every blowing of the withering wind, days of not knowing how you were have gone by, and gone by since

While I waited on,
at every blowing of the
withering wind, days
of not knowing how you were
have gone by, and gone by since