Ikabakari toshi wa henedomo suminoe no matsu zo futatabi oikawarinuru - Shin Kokin Wakashu(English Translation & Meaning)

いかばかり年は経ねども住の江の
松ぞふたたび生ひかはりぬる

Roma-ji: Ikabakari toshi wa henedomo suminoe no matsu zo futatabi oikawarinuru
English Translation: Not so many years,
how few, have passed—and yet
the pine of Suminoe
twice already has been renewed,
growing up anew.
Meaning: Hardly any years have passed, and yet the pine of Suminoe has already been renewed twice over.
Commentary: Book Nineteen Poems on the Gods 1856

Headnote: "It is said this poem was the god's reply when a certain person, visiting Sumiyoshi, offered the verse: "Were it a person, I would ask it—how many times has the pine of Suminoe been renewed?""
This is the fifth poem in the sequence of poems composed by the gods. It answers that, though hardly any years have passed, the pine of Suminoe has already been renewed twice. According to the left note, it was the god's reply to a person who visited Sumiyoshi and offered the verse "Hito naraba / towamashi mono o / suminoe no / matsu wa ikutabi / oikawaruran." It shows that the long ages beyond human reckoning are but a brief moment to a god.
The poem has no headnote; a left note follows it instead. In this text the left note is placed under the number of the next poem, but its content shows that it belongs to this poem, so it is cited here as the headnote.
No author is named in the original. According to the left note, the poem is regarded as the utterance of the deity of Sumiyoshi.
The visitor's poem asks: were the pine a person I would ask it, but how many times has the pine of Suminoe been renewed? The god answers by taking up the question's own word, "oikawaru."

The first line, "ikabakari," means "how much"; joined with a negative, it comes to mean "hardly any."
The second line, "toshi wa henedomo," means "though the years have not passed." "Ne," the perfective of the negative "zu," takes the conjunctive "domo." To a god, the span is slight.
The third line, "suminoe no," names the inlet at Sumiyoshi in Settsu, a poetic place famed for its pines. Following the preceding poem, a second poem of the Sumiyoshi Deity is set here.
The fourth line, "matsu zo futatabi," means "the pine, twice already." The particle "zo" is taken up in the last line. To the question's "ikutabi," "how many times," the god answers with a number: "futatabi," "twice."
The last line, "oikawarinuru," means "has been renewed," closing "zo" in kakari-musubi with "nuru," the attributive of the perfective "nu." It takes up "oikawaruran" from the visitor's poem directly. It corresponds to "oin sue made" in poem 1852 of this book, both speaking of a pine's growth.
Author: Sumiyoshi Deity (per the left note)
Source: Shin Kokin Wakashu
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