Samidare wa yukubeki michi no ate mo nashi ozasa ga hara mo uki ni nagarete

五月雨は行くべき道のあてもなし
小笹が原もうきに流れて

Roma-ji: Samidare wa yukubeki michi no ate mo nashi ozasa ga hara mo uki ni nagarete
English Translation: In the summer rain
of the road I ought to take
there is not a trace,
for the bamboo-grass meadow
too has turned to mire and flows.
Meaning: In the early summer rains I cannot tell where the road I should take might be, for even the meadow of bamboo grass has turned to mire and is washing away.
Commentary: Summer Poems 226

Headnote continued from the preceding poem: "When fifteen poems on the early summer rains were composed at a certain place, written on behalf of another"
This is the twelfth of the fifteen poems. The rains have flooded everything, and the poet cannot make out where the road should lie. Even the bamboo-grass meadow, usually easy to walk through, has turned to mire and is washing away.
The pairing of bamboo grass and path overlaps with 210 of this book, where the path through the old village fields of bamboo grass became a marsh; here the road itself can no longer be made out.

First line, “samidare wa”: in the season of the early summer rains, singled out with wa.
Second line, “yukubeki michi no”: the road one ought to go along.
Third line, “ate mo nashi”: there is no telling where it is; the poem breaks after the third line and the lower verse is inverted.
Fourth line, “ozasa ga hara mo”: a meadow where small bamboo grass grows.
Fifth line, “uki ni nagarete”: uki is miry wetland; the meadow has turned to mire and washes away, giving the reason for the third line afterwards.
Author: Saigyō
Source: Sankashu
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