Kaku sakeru hana mo koso are waga tame ni onaji haru to ya iubekarikeru

English Translation

There are flowers that
have come into bloom like this
and yet, for my part
am I to call this season
the same spring that they are in

Meaning

There are flowers that have come into bloom like this — and yet, for my part, can I call this the same spring at all?

Commentary

37 The Same Spring

The Governor of Izumo composed this poem when one of his brothers was promoted and allowed to attend at court, while he himself was not. The prose says no more, and the section consists of this single poem.
The Governor of Izumo was the head of that province's administration. Of the promoted brother the prose gives no name. To be allowed to attend at court meant admission to the chamber adjoining the emperor's own residence.
The season is spring, as the flowers in bloom tell us.
What prompted the poem was his brother's admission to court and his own exclusion.
The section ends with the poem; no response and no later event is recorded. Following the thirty-second and thirty-third sections, it continues a run of poems complaining of promotion withheld.

The opening says that there are flowers in bloom like this, and its grammar turns against itself: and yet.
The flowering is the brother admitted to court. Branches from one tree, and only one of them in blossom.
The third line marks the speaker off: for his own part.
The closing question is rhetorical — can this be called the same spring? He grants that spring comes alike to everyone, and then says the rule does not hold for him. The brother's promotion is never mentioned; the whole appeal rests on the contrast between a flower in bloom and a spring with no flower in it.

Source

Yamato Monogatari

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