Kawabata no yodomi ni tomaru nagareki no ukihashi watasu samidare no koro

川端の淀みに止まる流れ木の
浮橋渡す五月雨の頃

Roma-ji: Kawabata no yodomi ni tomaru nagareki no ukihashi watasu samidare no koro
English Translation: By the river's edge,
where the drifting timbers stop,
caught in the still pools,
a floating bridge is laid across
in this time of summer rains.
Meaning: Driftwood carried down and caught in the still pools by the riverbank lies like a floating bridge laid across the water in this season of early summer rain.
Commentary: Summer Poems 228

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 fourteenth of the fifteen poems. Timber swept down from upstream by the rising water has gathered in the still pools along the bank, lying in a row as if a floating bridge had been laid across the water.
Where 223 of this book told of people riding across a boat bridge that had floated up, here driftwood forms a floating bridge of its own accord, reversing the same theme of bridges.

First line, “kawabata no”: by the river, at its edge.
Second line, “yodomi ni tomaru”: drifting into a slack, still stretch of water and stopping there.
Third line, “nagareki no”: timber carried along by the water, driftwood.
Fourth line, “ukihashi watasu”: ukihashi is a floating bridge of boats or rafts laid across water, and the line of driftwood is likened to one.
Fifth line, “samidare no koro”: the poem ends on a noun, closing with the line shared by the group of rain poems.
Author: Saigyō
Source: Sankashu
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