Toki shimo are aki furusato ni kite mireba niwa wa nobe to mo narinikeru kana - Senzai Wakashu(English Translation & Meaning)

時しもあれ秋ふるさとに来て見れば
庭は野辺ともなりにけるかな

Roma-ji: Toki shimo are aki furusato ni kite mireba niwa wa nobe to mo narinikeru kana
English Translation: Of all the seasons
I come in autumn, waning,
to my old home and see
that the garden has become
nothing but an open field
Meaning: Of all times, it was in autumn that I came back to my old home, and I found that the garden had turned into an open field.
Commentary: Book Four Autumn Poems I 269

Headnote: "Composed on going in autumn to a place where I had long ceased to live"
Composed on going in autumn to a house where the poet had long ceased to live. Of all seasons, it is autumn when he comes back to his old home and finds the garden overgrown with grasses, turned entirely into an open field. In a garden left by human hands and become a field of autumn grasses, he sees the passage of time and the pathos of ruin.
The author, "Former Major Counselor Kintō," is Fujiwara no Kintō, son of Chancellor and Regent Fujiwara no Yoritada, who rose to Provisional Major Counselor. He compiled the Wakan Rōeishū and wrote the treatise Shinsen Zuinō, and was a leading man of culture in the reign of Emperor Ichijō. A poem of his is included in the Ogura Hyakunin Isshu.
As in Henjō's poem in the Kokin Wakashū, "The village lies in ruins, the people have grown old; is this why both garden and fence have become autumn fields?", seeing the garden of a ruined house as an autumn field is an old idea. The next poem, 270, also ends with "nobe to mo narinikeru kana," and the two share the conceit of a ruined garden seen as autumn fields.

First line, "toki shimo are": "of all times," here meaning the season of autumn.
Second line, "aki furusato ni": "furusato" is a place where one once lived, with "furu" also carrying "aki furu," autumn growing late.
Third line, "kite mireba": the realized condition, "when I came and looked."
Fourth line, "niwa wa nobe to mo": "the garden, into a field," showing a tended garden turned wild.
Fifth line, "narinikeru kana": "ni" is perfective, "keru" the attributive of "keri," and "kana" exclamatory. It is the same final line as the next poem, 270, voicing feeling for the ruined garden.
Author: Fujiwara no Kintō
Source: Senzai Wakashu
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