Since the paddy water
where the geese used to gather
ran dry, I have not
so much as seen the shadow
of the flower it once held

Meaning

Since the seedbed water where the geese used to gather ran dry, I have not so much as seen the shadow of the flower it once held.

Commentary

Part Two: Maboroshi

　The Akashi lady answered Genji's poem with this one. Since Murasaki no Ue died, she says, she has not even seen him—a quiet way of saying that he no longer comes. Conscious all her life of her low birth, she had served long at Rokujo, and it is like her not to put a grievance directly. Genji went on deepening his wish to leave the world while spending his days calling on his women and talking of the past.

　"Where the geese used to gather" takes up his own goose. "Seedbed water" is the water standing in a rice bed, and here it is Murasaki no Ue. "Ran dry" is coming to an end. "The shadow of the flower it once held" is what the water reflected—Genji himself. If the water is gone there is nothing to hold a reflection: a figure that follows its own logic, and it says exactly what Murasaki had been between the two of them.

Author

Murasaki Shikibu

Source

Genji Monogatari

Other

Since the paddy water where the geese used to gather ran dry, I have not so much as seen the shadow of the flower it once held

Since the paddy water
where the geese used to gather
ran dry, I have not
so much as seen the shadow
of the flower it once held