Ikade ka wa oto ni kokoro no sumazaran kusaki mo nabiku arashi narikeri

いかでかは音に心の澄まざらん
草木もなびく嵐なりけり

Roma-ji: Ikade ka wa oto ni kokoro no sumazaran kusaki mo nabiku arashi narikeri
English Translation: How could it be so,
that at such a sound my heart
would not be made clear?
It's a tempest that bends low
even the grasses and trees.
Meaning: How could my heart not grow clear at such a sound? It is a storm that bends even the grasses and the trees.
Commentary: Miscellaneous Poems 1089

Headnote continued from the preceding poem: "Topic unknown"
At the sound of a storm so fierce it bends even grasses and trees, how could the heart not grow clear? the poet asks, expressing a state in which a violent storm, paradoxically, makes the mind pure and still.
Where the preceding poem sang of sorrow growing with the sound of the wind, this one sings of the heart growing clear at the storm's sound; the same wind is caught in two different workings, sorrow and clarity. There is also a Buddhist association of grasses and trees bending to the teaching.

First line, “ikade ka wa”: rhetorical, "how could it be," answering the third line.
Second line, “oto ni kokoro no”: the heart, at the sound of the storm.
Third line, “sumazaran”: answering ikade ka wa, "would it not grow clear?" It surely would; the poem breaks here.
Fourth line, “kusaki mo nabiku”: bending even grasses and trees, showing the storm's force.
Fifth line, “arashi narikeri”: keri is exclamatory, "such a storm it is."
Author: Saigyō
Source: Sankashu
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