Arashi haku niwa no konoha no oshiki kana makoto no chiri ni narinu to omoeba

嵐掃く庭の木の葉の惜しきかな
まことの塵に成りぬと思へば

Roma-ji: Arashi haku niwa no konoha no oshiki kana makoto no chiri ni narinu to omoeba
English Translation: The storm wind sweeping
the leaves within my garden,
what a pity it is,
for they have become, I think,
no more than the dust they seem.
Meaning: How sad, the garden leaves the storm wind sweeps away, when I think that they have become nothing but true dust.
Commentary: Winter Poems 498

Headnote: "Fallen leaves"
The poem is on the topic of fallen leaves. Watching the storm sweep together the leaves in the garden, the poet grieves that leaves which once colored the treetops have, once fallen, become no different from real dust. The storm is pictured as someone sweeping the garden.
Where the preceding poem saw leaves on the water as crimson being washed in a stream, this one sees leaves fallen in the garden as dust, so the two poems view fallen leaves in contrasting ways.

First line, “arashi haku”: haku is to sweep with a broom, the storm gathering the leaves as if sweeping the garden.
Second line, “niwa no konoha no”: the leaves fallen in the garden.
Third line, “oshiki kana”: kana is exclamatory, and the poem breaks after the third line.
Fourth line, “makoto no chiri ni”: makoto no chiri is true dust, the leaves having become no different from dust.
Fifth line, “narinu to omoeba”: nu is perfective and ba marks an established condition, when I think they have become so; this stands in inversion to the third line.
Author: Saigyō
Source: Sankashu
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