Konoma moru tsuki no kage tomo miyuru kana hadara ni fureru niwa no shirayuki

木の間漏る月の影とも見ゆるかな
はだらに降れる庭の白雪

Roma-ji: Konoma moru tsuki no kage tomo miyuru kana hadara ni fureru niwa no shirayuki
English Translation: Moonlight filtering
through the trees it might well be,
so it seems to me:
fallen here in dapples, lies
the white snow upon the garden.
Meaning: It looks just like moonlight filtering through the trees: the white snow lying in patches in the garden.
Commentary: Winter Poems 526

Headnote: "Snow in the garden resembling moonlight"
The topic is snow in the garden resembling moonlight. The white snow lying in patches in the garden looks like moonlight that filters through the trees and falls in dapples on the ground. The patchy whiteness of the snow is likened to moonlight leaking between the trees.
Where 522 in this book likened the moonlight in the garden to ice, this poem likens the snow in the garden to moonlight, so a poem that sees the moonlight as something else and one that sees something else as moonlight answer each other in reverse.

First line, “konoma moru”: leaking through the trees, the moonlight falling between them.
Second line, “tsuki no kage tomo”: kage is the moonlight, and tomo means as, also.
Third line, “miyuru kana”: kana is exclamatory, and the poem breaks after the third line.
Fourth line, “hadara ni fureru”: hadara nari is in patches, thin and scattered, and ru is the attributive of the continuative ri.
Fifth line, “niwa no shirayuki”: the poem ends on a noun, setting the snow likened to moonlight last, in inversion.
Author: Saigyō
Source: Sankashu
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