Taga toshi no kazu to ka wa min yukikaeri chidori naku naru hama no masago o - Shui Wakashu(English Translation & Meaning)

誰が年の数とかは見ん行き帰り
千鳥鳴くなる浜の真砂を

Roma-ji: Taga toshi no kazu to ka wa min yukikaeri chidori naku naru hama no masago o
English Translation: Whose count of years then
should I take them for, if not yours?
Coming and going,
the plovers cry out upon
the fine sands along the shore.
Meaning: Whose count of years could I take them for but yours—the fine sands of the beach where plovers cry as they come and go?
Commentary: Book Five Celebration Poems 296

Headnote: "At the house of Minister of the Right Minamoto no Hikaru, when the losers' entertainment after a garden-plant contest was provided by Tachibana no Sukemi, Palace Attendant, who made a figure of plovers, and I was asked to compose a poem on it"
The poet asks whose count of years he could take the countless fine sands of the beach to be, where plovers cry as they come and go, if not his lord's. Likening the innumerable grains of sand to the number of the honoree's years, he celebrates a boundless life. According to the headnote, after a garden-plant contest at the house of Minister of the Right Minamoto no Hikaru, the Palace Attendant Tachibana no Sukemi took charge of the losers' entertainment and made a figure of plovers, and the poet was asked to compose a poem on it.
The author, written as Tsurayuki, is Ki no Tsurayuki. The leading compiler of the Kokinshū, he wrote its Kana Preface and the Tosa Diary, and he is counted among the Thirty-Six Immortal Poets.

First line, "taga toshi no," means "whose years." Like "the number of years" in 285 of this book, it treats the sands as a count of years.
Second line, "kazu to ka wa min," means "should I see as the number," with "ka wa" expressing a rhetorical question: I would see them as no one's years but yours. The particle "ka" is resolved by the attributive "n." The poem pauses here, and by inversion what is seen is given in the final line.
Third line, "yukikaeri," means "coming and going."
Fourth line, "chidori naku naru," means "where plovers seem to cry," with "naru" an auxiliary of inference. The "chi" (thousand) of "chidori" suggests great number, and after the pine crickets of the preceding poem the voices of birds are heard. In 224 and 238 of Book Four the plovers expressed the loneliness of winter, but here they are birds of celebration.
Final line, "hama no masago o," means "the fine sands of the beach," a figure for the countless.
Author: Ki no Tsurayuki
Source: Shui Wakashu
Prev Poem: Chitose to zo kusamura goto ni kikoyu naru ko ya matsumushi no koe ni wa aru ran
Next Poem: Oisomuru ne yori zo shiruki fuetake no sue no yo nagaku naran mono to wa