Ikumeguri sora yuku tsuki mo hedatekinu chigirishi naka wa yoso no ukigumo - Shin Kokin Wakashu(English Translation & Meaning)

幾めぐり空行く月も隔てきぬ
契りし中はよその浮雲

Roma-ji: Ikumeguri sora yuku tsuki mo hedatekinu chigirishi naka wa yoso no ukigumo
English Translation: How many circlings
of the moon across the sky
have come in between!
The bond that we once vowed is
a drifting cloud, far away.
Meaning: How many times has the moon circled across the sky since then, so many months have come between us; the bond we once pledged is now a drifting cloud belonging to somewhere else.
Commentary: Book Fourteen Love Poems IV 1275

Headnote continued from the preceding poem: "For the Poetry Contest in Fifteen Hundred Rounds."
This is the twentieth poem of the sequence of love poems on the moon. So many months have passed, as many as the moon's circlings across the sky, the speaker says, that the bond we pledged is now a drifting cloud belonging elsewhere. Continuing from the preceding poem, it was submitted to the Poetry Contest in Fifteen Hundred Rounds.
The author, "Michiteru, Commander of the Left Gate Guards," is Minamoto no Michiteru. A son of the Palace Minister Minamoto no Michichika, he later rose to grand minister. Commander of the Left Gate Guards was his office when the collection was compiled.

The first line, "ikumeguri," means "how many circlings," counting the moon's course.
The second line, "sora yuku tsuki mo," means "even the moon crossing the sky." It is the same phrase, "sora yuku tsuki," as in Tachibana no Tadamoto's poem, on which Yoshitsune's poem, 1272, draws.
The third line, "hedatekinu," means "have come between," and the poem breaks after it. "Tsuki" means both the moon in the sky and the month of the calendar, showing the distance between the two widening with every circling of the moon.
The fourth line, "chigirishi naka wa," means "the bond we pledged."
The last line, "yoso no ukigumo," is the same last line as Yoshitsune's poem, 1272. There the drifting clouds were called upon as something screening the moon; here the bond itself has become a drifting cloud belonging elsewhere, reversing the same last line.
Author: Minamoto no Michiteru
Source: Shin Kokin Wakashu
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