Oshinabete yuki no shirayū kaketekeri izure sakaki no kozue naruran - Senzai Wakashu(English Translation & Meaning)

押しなべて雪の白木綿かけてけり
いづれ榊の梢なるらん

Roma-ji: Oshinabete yuki no shirayū kaketekeri izure sakaki no kozue naruran
English Translation: Over everything
the snow has draped its white
sacred mulberry cloth;
which of all these, I wonder,
are the boughs of sakaki?
Meaning: The snow has draped white cloth over everything alike; which of these, I wonder, are the boughs of the sacred sakaki?
Commentary: Book Twenty Shinto Poems 1266

Headnote: "Composed on the theme of snow at the shrine when people composed poems for the Hirota Shrine poetry contest"
He composed this on the theme of snow at the shrine when people composed poems for the Hirota Shrine contest. The Hirota Shrine is in Settsu, and the contest was held in 1172. The snow has draped white cloth over everything; which are the boughs of sakaki? he says. In rites, white mulberry cloth is hung on sakaki as an offering to the gods, but the snow has covered every tree at the shrine in white, as if cloth had been hung on each one, so he cannot tell which is the sakaki, seeing the snow as sacred cloth.
The author, "Provisional Major Counselor Sanekuni," is Fujiwara no Sanekuni. A son of the Palace Minister Fujiwara no Kinnori, he rose to provisional major counselor and was known as a master of the flute.
Following the poems on the moon at the shrine, it takes up snow at the shrine; where the preceding poem, 1265, sees moonlight as frost, this one sees snow as sacred cloth, both singing of what covers the trees at the shrine in white.

First line, "oshinabete": "over everything alike."
Second line, "yuki no shirayū": "shirayū" is white cloth made from mulberry fiber and hung on sakaki in rites; the snow is seen as that cloth.
Third line, "kaketekeri": "te" is the continuative of the perfective "tsu" and "keri" exclamatory, "it has hung." The poem pauses here.
Fourth line, "izure sakaki no": "which of them is the sakaki's."
Fifth line, "kozue naruran": "ran" is the present conjectural "ramu," "could be the boughs?"
Author: Fujiwara no Sanekuni
Source: Senzai Wakashu
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