Hana sasou nagori o kumo ni fukitomete shibashi wa nioe haru no yamakaze

English Translation

Calling the flowers
hold what is left of them here
among the clouds, and
glow a little while longer
you spring wind off the mountain

Meaning

You called the flowers down: now hold what remains of them among the clouds, and let it glow a little longer, spring wind off the mountain.

Commentary

Book Two Spring Poems II 145

Headnote: on the theme of falling blossom.
The second poem addressing the spring wind. Where the previous poem asked for the cloud to be left, this one asks that the flowers' afterglow be held in the cloud. The topic named is falling blossom.
The poet is Asukai no Masatsune, one of the compilers of the Shin Kokin Wakashu. In Book One he is the poet of the seventy-fourth, ninety-third and ninety-fourth poems.
The time is after the cherries have fallen; the place is a mountain.
The occasion was the set topic.

The first line, modifying the wind, means to call the flowers out and scatter them, the verb used in Kunaikyo's hundred and twenty-eighth poem and in the hundred and fortieth.
The word in the second line means what is left behind, an afterglow or lingering trace, and the poem asks that it be kept in the cloud as something with form.
The verb in the third line means to blow and so hold in place. Asking a wind whose business is scattering to hold things instead is a contradiction, and the impossibility measures the urgency of the wish.
The imperative in the fourth line means to shine with rich colour: let the cloud go on glowing with the flowers' colour though the flowers are gone.
The poem closes on the same noun as the previous one, so that two poems share an ending and repeat an appeal to the same listener.

Author

Fujiwara no Masatsune

Source

Shin Kokin Wakashu

Other