Itsu tote mo oshiku ya wa aranu toshitsuki o misogi ni sutsuru natsu no kure kana - Senzai Wakashu(English Translation & Meaning)

いつとても惜しくやはあらぬ年月を
禊に捨つる夏の暮かな

Roma-ji: Itsu tote mo oshiku ya wa aranu toshitsuki o misogi ni sutsuru natsu no kure kana
English Translation: When is there a time
that I would not grieve to lose them,
the months and years?
Yet I cast them off in cleansing
at this close of summer days
Meaning: When are the passing months and years ever not to be regretted? Yet at summer's close I cast them away with the purification.
Commentary: Book Three Summer Poems 224

Headnote continued from the preceding poem: "Composed on the Sixth Month Purification when presenting a hundred-poem sequence"
Like the preceding poem, this was composed on "the Sixth Month Purification" for the hundred-poem sequence presented to Retired Emperor Sutoku. The passing months and years are never anything but precious, the poet says, yet at this close of summer the purification washes away not only sins and defilements but half a year of time as well. Seeing the rite that cleanses sins as an act of throwing away precious time, the poem expresses regret for time passing at summer's end. It is a poem by the compiler Shunzei himself.
The author, "Master of the Empress Dowager's Household Shunzei," is Fujiwara no Shunzei, son of Provisional Middle Counselor Fujiwara no Toshitada. He served as Master of the Empress Dowager's Household and rose to Senior Third Rank. He is the compiler himself, who chose the Senzai Wakashū at Retired Emperor Go-Shirakawa's command, and a poem of his is included in the Ogura Hyakunin Isshu.

First line, "itsu tote mo": "at whatever time."
Second line, "oshiku ya wa aranu": "ya wa" is rhetorical: "is there a time they are not precious? Never."
Third line, "toshitsuki o": "the months and years" that pass.
Fourth line, "misogi ni sutsuru": "casting them away in the purification." Taking up the purification of the preceding poem, 223, it sees time itself as what is washed away.
Fifth line, "natsu no kure kana": the exclamatory "kana." Where poems 134 and 135 of Book Two closed that book lamenting the end of spring on the topic "the close of spring," this poem laments the close of summer as the present book nears its end.
Author: Fujiwara no Shunzei
Source: Senzai Wakashu
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