Yo o somuki kusa no iori ni sumizome no koromo no iro wa kaeru mono ka wa - Senzai Wakashu(English Translation & Meaning)

世を背き草の庵にすみ染の
衣の色はかへるものかは

Roma-ji: Yo o somuki kusa no iori ni sumizome no koromo no iro wa kaeru mono ka wa
English Translation: Turning from the world,
in a hut of grasses I dwell,
and this robe dyed black,
can its color ever turn
back to what it was before?
Meaning: Having turned from the world and come to live in a grass hut, can the ink-dyed color of my robe ever turn back again? Nor shall I go back.
Commentary: Book Seventeen Miscellaneous Poems II 1147

Headnote: "Sent when, as I was secluded at a mountain temple, someone staying on at the lodging asked when I meant to come out"
While he was secluded at a mountain temple, someone who had stayed on at the lodging asked when he intended to come out, and he sent this poem in answer. Turning from the world, I began to dwell in a grass hut; can the color of this ink-dyed robe ever turn back, he says. Just as a robe once dyed black with ink never returns to its former color, he who has cast off the world and begun to live in a mountain hut will never return to worldly life, and he answers his questioner with the firmness of his resolve.
The author, "the holy man Kakushun," was a monk of the late Heian period whose biography is not known in detail.
It shares "sumizome," ink-dyed, with 1136 and 1137 of this book and the next poem, 1148. And where 1133 of this book wonders whether to leave the mountains in answer to a friend's letter, this poem answers that the poet will never leave, so the two stand in contrast.

First line, "yo o somuki": "turning from the world," taking the tonsure.
Second line, "kusa no iori ni": "in a humble hut thatched with grass."
Third line, "sumizome no": "sumi" is a pivot word joining "sumi," to dwell, and "sumi," ink, overlapping beginning to live in a grass hut with a robe dyed in ink. It is the same expression as "sumizome no" in the third line of the next poem, 1148.
Fourth line, "koromo no iro wa": "the color of the ink-dyed robe."
Fifth line, "kaeru mono ka wa": "kaeru" is a pivot word joining "kaeru," for a color to return, and "kaeru," to go back from the mountains to the world, and "ka wa" is rhetorical, "can it return? It cannot."
Author: Kakushun
Source: Senzai Wakashu
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