Mi ni chikaku kinikeru mono o iro kawaru aki o ba yoso ni omoishi kadomo - Shin Kokin Wakashu(English Translation & Meaning)

身に近く来にけるものを色かはる
あきをばよそに思ひしかども

Roma-ji: Mi ni chikaku kinikeru mono o iro kawaru aki o ba yoso ni omoishi kadomo
English Translation: Close beside myself,
it had come without my knowing;
the color-changing
autumn, the weariness of love,
I thought belonged to others
Meaning: It had come right beside me after all: the autumn that changes colors, the weariness that changes hearts, which I had thought belonged to others.
Commentary: Book Fifteen Love Poems V 1352

Headnote: "Composed while gazing out alone one autumn evening when I had something weighing on my mind."
This is the second poem of the sequence on the changing colors of autumn. The speaker had thought the color-changing autumn, that is, love's weariness, belonged to others, and realizes it has come close to herself. According to the headnote, it was composed while brooding alone on an autumn evening when something weighed on her mind.
The author, "Wife of the Rokujō Minister of the Right," is the wife of Minamoto no Akifusa, known as the Rokujō Minister of the Right. "Shitsu" is a word for the wife of a person of rank.

The first line, "mi ni chikaku," means "close beside me."
In the second line, "kinikeru mono o," "nikeru" joins the perfective "nu" to "keri" of realization, expressing surprise: "it had come." "Mono o" is exclamatory. The poem breaks after the second line.
The third line, "iro kawaru," overlays the change of color in plants with the change of a person's heart. It takes up the autumn leaves of the preceding poem.
In the fourth line, "aki o ba yoso ni," "aki" is a pivot word joining the season "autumn" and "weariness" that drives hearts apart. Inverted from the second line, it reveals here what had come close.
The last line, "omoishi kadomo," is the same phrase as the second line of 1342, overturning what one had believed. Whereas the preceding poem imagined leaves turning on distant Adachi Moor, here autumn has come close to the self, a contrast of far and near.
Author: Wife of the Rokujō Minister of the Right
Source: Shin Kokin Wakashu
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