Kono haru zo omoi wa kaesu sakurabana munashiki iro ni someshi kokoro o - Senzai Wakashu(English Translation & Meaning)

この春ぞ思ひは返す桜花
むなしき色に染めし心を

Roma-ji: Kono haru zo omoi wa kaesu sakurabana munashiki iro ni someshi kokoro o
English Translation: It is in this spring
that I turn my thoughts around,
O cherry blossoms,
this heart that I once had dyed
in colors that are but empty
Meaning: It is this spring that I turn my thoughts around, O cherry blossoms, the heart I once dyed in your empty colors.
Commentary: Book Seventeen Miscellaneous Poems II 1068

Headnote: "Composed on seeing the blossoms in the spring of the year after I had turned my back on the world"
This poem was composed on seeing the blossoms in the spring of the year after he took the tonsure. In this spring I turn my thoughts around, O cherry blossoms, the heart I dyed in empty colors, he says. While he lived in the world his heart was dyed in the colors of the flowers, but in the first spring after entering the Buddhist path he realizes that those colors are empty, as Buddhism teaches, and changes his heart. Facing the beauty of the blossoms, he renews his awareness of himself as one who has left the world.
The author, "the monk Jakuzen," was a son of Fujiwara no Tametada, and his lay name was Yorinari. With his elder brothers Jakuchō and Jakunen he lived at Ōhara, and the three were called the Three Jaku of Ōhara. He was a close friend of Saigyō.
It shares the heart "dyed" in the blossoms with "hana ni somu" in the first line of 1066 of this book. Where 1066 says that a heart dyed in the flowers remains in one who thought he had cast all away, this poem sings of turning back the heart once dyed in their color, so the two stand in contrast.

First line, "kono haru zo": "zo" is an emphatic binding particle closing with "kaesu" in the second line. It is the first spring after taking the tonsure.
Second line, "omoi wa kaesu": "I turn my thoughts around." This closes the binding, and the poem pauses here.
Third line, "sakurabana": an address to the cherry blossoms.
Fourth line, "munashiki iro ni": "iro" overlaps the color of the flowers with the Buddhist sense of all that has form, and calls it empty. It draws on the teaching that form is emptiness.
Fifth line, "someshi kokoro o": "the heart I dyed," naming through inversion what is turned around in the second line. It shares the "dyeing" of the heart with "hana ni somu" in the first line of 1066 of this book.
Author: Jakuzen
Source: Senzai Wakashu
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