Tachikawaru haru o shire to mo misegao ni toshi o hedatsuru kasumi narikeri

立ちかはる春を知れとも見せ顔に
年をへだつる霞なりけり

Roma-ji: Tachikawaru haru o shire to mo misegao ni toshi o hedatsuru kasumi narikeri
English Translation: The season has turned:
know that spring is here, it says,
as if to show me,
standing between the two years,
the haze that divides them both.
Meaning: As if to show me plainly that the season has changed and spring is here, the haze rises between the old year and the new, dividing them.
Commentary: Spring Poems 4

Headnote continued from the preceding poem: "Composed on the morning when spring arrived"
This is the fourth poem for the morning of spring's arrival. The haze rises as if to say, know that the season has turned to spring, standing between the old year and the new. The haze is seen as giving visible form to the boundary between years.
The ingenuity lies in taking the familiar way haze screens one thing from another and applying it to a boundary in time. The sequence of new spring poems moves from dream to ridgeline to Otowa Mountain, and here widens its view to a haze that divides the years themselves.

First line, “tachikawaru”: to change places, to be renewed, meaning the old year has given way to the new; tachi also echoes the rising of haze, an associated word.
Second line, “haru o shire to mo”: shire is imperative, as if the haze were saying, know that spring has come.
Third line, “misegao ni”: with an air of showing off, personifying the haze.
Fourth line, “toshi o hedatsuru”: dividing the old year from the new, likening the way haze screens a view to the boundary of the year.
Fifth line, “kasumi narikeri”: keri expresses sudden realization, closing on the recognition that it was the haze that divided the years.
Author: Saigyō
Source: Sankashu
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