Waga koi wa chigi no katasogi kataku nomi yukiawade toshi no tsumorinuru kana - Shin Kokin Wakashu(English Translation & Meaning)

わが恋は千木の片削ぎかたくのみ
行き合はで年の積もりぬるかな

Roma-ji: Waga koi wa chigi no katasogi kataku nomi yukiawade toshi no tsumorinuru kana
English Translation: This love of mine is
like the cut ends of shrine beams,
hard and hard alone,
never meeting, while the years
go on piling up, alas.
Meaning: My love is like the half-cut ends of the crossed beams on a shrine roof: nothing but hardship, never meeting, while the years pile up one upon another.
Commentary: Book Twelve Love Poems II 1114

Headnote: "When presenting a hundred-poem sequence to Retired Emperor Sutoku."
This is the second of two poems on the grief of a love that goes unmet through the years. The speaker's love is like the half-cut ends of shrine beams, hard and never meeting, while the years pile up. According to the headnote, it was composed when a hundred-poem sequence was presented to Retired Emperor Sutoku.
The author, "Ōimikado Minister of the Right," is Fujiwara no Kinyoshi. The son of Minister of the Left Fujiwara no Saneyoshi, he rose to minister of the right.
The hundred-poem sequence presented to Retired Emperor Sutoku is the Kyūan Hundred-Poem Sequences, submitted in Kyūan 6 (1150).

The first line, "waga koi wa," means "my love," introducing the figure that follows.
The second line, "chigi no katasogi," is the crossed beams jutting from the ends of a shrine roof with their tips cut on one side only. Because the tips of the crossed beams never meet, it leads to "yukiawade" in the fourth line. A poem attributed to the god of Sumiyoshi, "Is the night cold, is my robe thin? Through the gap where the cut beams never meet, does frost settle?", likewise sings of the half-cut beams that never meet.
The third line, "kataku nomi," means "only hard, never easy." From "katasogi" in the second line it draws the like-sounding "kataku," setting the rhythm through the echo of sounds.
The fourth line, "yukiawade toshi no," means "the years, without meeting," laying the beams that never meet over lovers who cannot meet.
The last line, "tsumorinuru kana," means "have piled up," with "kana" voicing a sigh. Like "toshi o furu kana" in poem 1085 of this book, it ends with "kana" in grief over years piling up without a meeting, and takes up the unceasing grief of the preceding poem as years that pile up.
Author: Fujiwara no Kinyoshi
Source: Shin Kokin Wakashu
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