Tare ni ka mo mukashi o towamu furusato no nokiba no ume wa haru o koso shire

誰にかも昔を問はむ故郷の
軒端の梅は春をこそ知れ

Roma-ji: Tare ni ka mo mukashi o towamu furusato no nokiba no ume wa haru o koso shire
English Translation: To whom, I wonder,
shall I go to ask of old times?
At the old homestead
the plum beside the eaves
knows only that spring has come.
Meaning: Whom can I ask about the old days? The plum by the eaves of my old home knows only that spring has come.
Commentary: Spring Poems 32

Headnote continued from the preceding poem: "Plum blossoms at the old home"
At an old home where no one who knew the past remains, the poet laments that he has no one to ask about bygone days. The plum by the eaves knows spring and blooms, but it tells nothing of old times—such is the loneliness the poem conveys. Kamo no Mabuchi marked it with a circle, calling it good among the poems of the middle period.
This poem was included in the Shokushūi Wakashū, where the fourth line differs.

Line 1: ka is interrogative and mo exclamatory, meaning "to whom, I wonder."
Line 2 concludes the ka construction with the attributive of mu, and the poem pauses here.
Line 3, "At the old homestead," takes up the topic.
Line 4, "the plum beside the eaves," evokes those who once lived there.
Line 5: koso with the realis shire forms a kakarimusubi, implying that it knows spring but not the past. Against the plum "unforgetting of the past" in the preceding poem, 31, this plum tells nothing of old times, closing the set of three.
Author: Minamoto no Sanetomo
Source: Kinkaishu
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