Kari ni dani itou kokoro ya nakaramashi chiranu hana saku kono yo nariseba - Senzai Wakashu(English Translation & Meaning)

仮にだに厭ふ心やなからまし
散らぬ花咲くこの世なりせば

Roma-ji: Kari ni dani itou kokoro ya nakaramashi chiranu hana saku kono yo nariseba
English Translation: Not even for a moment
would I have felt the wish
to cast away this world,
if only it were a world
where blossoms never fell
Meaning: Not even for a moment would I wish to turn away from this world, if only it were a world where flowers bloomed and never fell.
Commentary: Book One Spring Poems I 54

Headnote: "Composed on a day of blossom viewing at Higashiyama"
Composed on a day of blossom viewing at Higashiyama, this poem says that if this were a world where flowers bloom and never scatter, the wish to forsake the world would never arise, not even for a moment. Seeing in the inevitable falling of lovely cherries the impermanence of the world, it links the heart that regrets the blossoms with the heart that would renounce the world.
The author, "Minister of the Right," is Tokudaiji Sanesada, son of Minister of the Right Fujiwara no Kinyoshi. He held the post of Minister of the Right when the Senzai Wakashū was compiled and later became Minister of the Left. He was known as the Later Tokudaiji Minister of the Left.
Its method of voicing feeling for the cherries through a contrary-to-fact supposition recalls Ariwara no Narihira's Kokin Wakashū poem saying that if there were no cherries in the world, hearts in spring would be at peace.

First line, "kari ni dani": "dani" means "even, at least," so "not even for a moment."
Second line, "itou kokoro ya": "itou" means to loathe the world and wish to leave it. The interrogative "ya" links with "mashi" in the third line.
Third line, "nakaramashi": "mashi" is counterfactual, "there would have been none," and the poem pauses here.
Fourth line, "chiranu hana saku": "where flowers bloom that never fall."
Fifth line, "kono yo nariseba": "seba," the irrealis of the past auxiliary "ki" with "ba," answers "mashi" in the third line to form a counterfactual condition, placed after its consequence by inversion.
Author: Tokudaiji Sanesada
Source: Senzai Wakashu
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