Ochitagitsu taki no minakami toshi tsumori oinikerashi na kuroki suji nashi - Kokin Wakashu(English Translation & Meaning)

落ちたぎつ滝の水上年積もり
老いにけらしな黒き筋なし

Roma-ji: Ochitagitsu taki no minakami toshi tsumori oinikerashi na kuroki suji nashi
English Translation: The seething falls—
at their source the years
must have piled high;
they have grown old, it seems,
with not one strand of black.
Meaning: At the source of these seething falls, the years must have piled up: they seem to have grown old, for there is not a single strand of black.
Commentary: Book Seventeen Miscellaneous Poems I 928

Headnote: "Composed on seeing the Otowa Falls on Mount Hiei"
Composed on seeing the Otowa Falls on Mount Hiei. Likening the pure white falling water to white hair, the poet wittily says the source of the falls must have grown old with the years, for not one black strand remains.
The author, "Tadamine," is Mibu no Tadamine, one of the compilers of the Kokin Wakashū and one of the Thirty-Six Poetic Immortals.

First line "ochitagitsu" means falling as if violently seething.
Second line "taki no minakami" points to the source of the falls, leading to the fancy of the falls as a human head.
Third line "toshi tsumori" means years piling up. It echoes "piling up, becomes a person's old age" in poem 879 of this book, reviving the theme of age within the waterfall poems.
Fourth line "oinikerashi na" joins the inferential rashi and the exclamatory na: it seems to have grown old. The poem pauses here.
Fifth line "kuroki suji nashi" likens the all-white falls to white hair, giving the ground for the inference. The next poem, 929, also sings of the same Otowa Falls.
Author: Mibu no Tadamine
Source: Kokin Wakashu
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