Imo ga na ni kaketaru sakura hana sakaba tsune ni ya koimu iya toshi no ha ni

妹が名に懸けたる桜花咲かば
常にや恋ひむいや年のはに

Roma-ji: Imo ga na ni kaketaru sakura hana sakaba tsune ni ya koimu iya toshi no ha ni
English Translation: The cherry flower
that bears my beloved's name—
whenever it blooms,
shall I yearn for her always,
ever more, year after year?
Meaning: Whenever the cherry that bears my beloved's name comes into bloom, shall I not long for her always, more deeply with every passing year?
Commentary: Book Sixteen Poems with Tales of Origin and Miscellaneous Poems 3787

Headnote continued from the preceding poem: "Each set down his feelings in a poem; two poems."
The poet says that each time the cherry linked to the maiden's name blooms, he will go on longing for her year after year. Where the preceding poem grieves over blossoms already fallen, this one looks ahead to every spring to come and speaks of a longing that will never end.
Like the preceding poem, it is by one of the two young men who fought over Sakurako, and the two poems form a pair mourning her death.
The poets are the two young men who courted Sakurako; their names are not recorded. This pair opens Book Sixteen's poems with tales of origin, and the story behind them is told in Chinese prose in the headnote.

First line, "imo ga na ni," means "to my beloved's name." Imo is the affectionate word a man uses for his lover or wife, here Sakurako.
Second line, "kaketaru sakura," means "the cherry bound to her name," since the name Sakurako comes from the cherry. It takes up "sakura no hana wa" in the preceding poem, 3786, and views the same flower from another side.
Third line, "hana sakaba," means "when it blooms." It answers the preceding poem's "chiri ni keru kamo," turning scattering into blooming in a reversed image.
Fourth line, "tsune ni ya koimu," means "shall I always yearn?" The particle ya and the attributive mu form a kakari-musubi, and the poem pauses here after the fourth line.
Final line, "iya toshi no ha ni," means "ever more, year after year." Through inversion it attaches to koimu, widening a single day's grief into a longing that spans the years.
Source: Manyoshu
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