Toshi o hete kakeshi aoi wa kawaranedo kyō no kazashi wa mezurashiki kana - Shika Wakashu(English Translation & Meaning)

年を経てかけしあふひは変はらねど
今日のかざしはめづらしきかな

Roma-ji: Toshi o hete kakeshi aoi wa kawaranedo kyō no kazashi wa mezurashiki kana
English Translation: Through all the years
the aoi we have hung
has never changed—
yet how fresh and new it seems,
this spray I wear today!
Meaning: The hollyhock we have hung year after year is just the same as ever, and yet the spray I wear in my hair today feels wonderfully new.
Commentary: Book Two Summer Poems 53

This poem concerns the aoi, or hollyhock, used to decorate the Kamo Festival in the Fourth Month. The leaves hung each year have not changed at all, yet today's spray feels uniquely fresh. It may express the feelings of someone attending the festival in a new role or with new hopes.
After the change of robes and the deutzia, the sequence moves on to the Kamo Festival, a Fourth Month observance. The next poem, 54, also treats a divine festival, so two poems on Shinto rites stand side by side.

First line, "through all the years," marks the long passage of time.
Second line plays on aoi, meaning both the festival "hollyhock" and au hi, "a day of meeting," layering in the idea of meeting someone on the festival day.
Third line is concessive, contrasting the unchanging leaves with the freshness that follows. It also echoes the final line of the next poem, 55, "has not changed."
Fourth line, "today," answers "through all the years" in the first line, setting a single day against long years.
Fifth line, "how fresh and new," closes with the exclamatory particle kana.
Source: Shika Wakashu
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