Aimite mo mine ni wakaruru shirakumo no kakaru kono yo no itowashiki kana - Shin Kokin Wakashu(English Translation & Meaning)

あひ見ても峰に別るる白雲の
かかるこの世のいとはしきかな

Roma-ji: Aimite mo mine ni wakaruru shirakumo no kakaru kono yo no itowashiki kana
English Translation: Though they meet, they part,
at the mountain peak, those clouds,
the white clouds that hang—
a world that hangs so, like this,
how wearisome it is!
Meaning: Like white clouds that meet only to part at the peak, this world where such partings hang over us—how wearisome it is!
Commentary: Book Twenty Buddhist Poems 1958

Headnote: "Where there is meeting, there is parting."
This is the eighth poem in the sequence of poems from the Hundred Poems on Buddhist Texts by Jakuzen and others. Like white clouds that meet only to part at the peak, this world, where every meeting ends in parting, is hateful to the poet. According to the headnote, it was composed on the meaning of the phrase "Where there is meeting, there is parting."
The principle of impermanence, that every meeting ends in parting, is entrusted to white clouds that gather at the peak and drift apart, expressing a longing to turn from this world.
The author, "Minamoto no Suehiro," was a poet of the late Heian period of whom little is known.
"Where there is meeting, there is parting" is a phrase meaning that all who meet must surely part, expressing the teaching that those who meet are bound to separate.

The first line, "aimite mo," means "even if we meet," transposing the scripture's "meeting."
The second line, "mine ni wakaruru," means "parting at the peak," transposing the scripture's "parting" into the shape of clouds.
The third line, "shirakumo no," is white clouds that gather at the peak and drift apart again, a figure for the human world of repeated meetings and partings.
In the fourth line, "kakaru kono yo no," "kakaru" is a pivot word joining white clouds "hanging" on the peak and "kakaru" meaning "such as this." Through this pivot, the cloud scene of the upper half turns into a lament for this world.
The last line, "itowashiki kana," closes with the exclamatory "kana," expressing a heart weary of this world. Following 1954 in this book, which laments parting from the Buddha with dewy tears, this poem turns away from a world of partings itself.
Author: Minamoto no Suehiro
Source: Shin Kokin Wakashu
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