Keburi taete yaku hito mo naki sumigama no ato no nageki o tare ka koruran - Shin Kokin Wakashu(English Translation & Meaning)

煙絶えて焼く人もなき炭竈の
跡のなげきを誰か樵るらん

Roma-ji: Keburi taete yaku hito mo naki sumigama no ato no nageki o tare ka koruran
English Translation: The smoke has ceased now,
no one's left to fire the kiln—
at the charcoal kiln,
the logs of grief left behind,
who will ever cut them now?
Meaning: The smoke has ceased and no one is left to fire the charcoal kiln—who now will cut the logs of grief left behind?
Commentary: Book Seventeen Miscellaneous Poems II 1669

Headnote: "When, after the death of Shun'e Hōshi, I sent to his disciples the firewood and other things I had sent him for years."
This is the second poem of the sequence on ruined dwellings. Mourning the late Shun'e, the poet asks who now will cut the logs of grief left at the charcoal kiln whose smoke has ceased with no one left to fire it. According to the headnote, it accompanied the firewood and other things he had sent Shun'e for years, now sent to his disciples after his death.
The author, "Kamo no Shigeyasu," was chief priest of the Kamo Wakeikazuchi Shrine and compiled the Tsukimōde Wakashū.
Shun'e, a son of Minamoto no Toshiyori, named his monk's lodging at Shirakawa in the capital the Karin'en, the Garden of Poetic Forest, and held poetry gatherings there attended by many poets.

The first line, "keburi taete," means "the smoke having ceased." Upon the dying of the kiln fire is laid Shun'e's death. It is hypermetric, with six syllables.
The second line, "yaku hito mo naki," means "with no one to fire it."
The third line, "sumigama no," means "of the charcoal kiln." Shun'e's dwelling is likened to a charcoal kiln. It also echoes the charcoal kilns of Ōhara in 1641 in this book.
The fourth line, "ato no nageki o," pivots on "nageki," both the "grief" of those left behind and "nage-ki," logs thrown into the kiln. "Charcoal kiln" and "thrown logs" are associated words.
The last line, "tare ka koruran," closes the kakari-musubi of "ka" with the attributive form of "ran." The sorrow that there is no master to receive the firewood is sung as there being no one to cut it. Following the ruined old home of the preceding poem, it sings of a dwelling that has lost its master.
Author: Kamo no Shigeyasu
Source: Shin Kokin Wakashu
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