Furusato no hana no sakari wa suginuredo omokage saranu haru no sora kana

English Translation

In the old village
the height of the flowers is past
and yet their image
has not left, and it lingers
across the sky of the spring

Meaning

The flowers of the old village are past their height, and still their image has not left the spring sky.

Commentary

Book Two Spring Poems II 148

Headnote: topic unknown.
Like the previous poem, this one takes an old village the flowers have left; but here what remains is an image that cannot be seen. The headnote gives no topic and nothing is known of the circumstances.
The poet, given by his court title, is Minamoto no Tsunenobu, who rose to Major Counsellor and was accomplished in Chinese verse and music as well as poetry. This is his second appearance in this book, after the hundred and twenty-second poem.
The time is after the cherries have fallen; the place is an old village.
The occasion of composition is not recorded.

The first line stands where the previous poem's old home of the flowers stood, so that the two share a word.
The second line names what has been lost.
The concessive particle in the third line means: though it is past.
The word in the fourth line means a shape that rises in the mind, something felt as visible though it is not. The flowers are gone and the look of them remains in the sky.
The poem closes on a noun with an exclamatory particle. Where the previous poem gave a visible absence in the shape of empty branches, this one gives an invisible presence, so that the two make a pair in their handling of loss. Nagaie's hundred and third poem had the sky glowing with the flowers' colour; here the same sky appears after they have gone.

Author

Minamoto no Tsunenobu

Source

Shin Kokin Wakashu

Other