Ume no hana iro wa sore to mo wakanu made kaze ni midarete yuki wa furitsutsu

梅の花色はそれとも分かぬまで
風に乱れて雪は降りつつ

Roma-ji: Ume no hana iro wa sore to mo wakanu made kaze ni midarete yuki wa furitsutsu
English Translation: The plum's fair blossoms,
until their color is lost,
none can tell apart,
whirling in the wind, the snow
keeps on falling, falling down.
Meaning: Whirling in the wind, the snow keeps falling until no one can tell the color of the plum blossoms from it.
Commentary: Spring Poems 37

Headnote: "On a folding-screen painting of snow falling on plum blossoms"
Responding to a screen painting of snow falling on plum trees, the poet describes snow dancing in the wind and falling until the white plum and the snow cannot be told apart. It is a quiet, lovely early-spring scene in which white flowers and white snow merge. Kamo no Mabuchi marked it with a circle.
This poem was included in the Shokugosen Wakashū. In the Ruijū text the headnote reads "A place on a screen where snow falls on a plum tree." The idea that plum and snow cannot be distinguished has a precedent in the Kokinshū poem in which plum blossoms cannot be seen for the snow clouding the sky.

Line 1 names the plum, the subject of the painting.
Line 2, "their color," points to the overlapping colors of white plum and snow.
Line 3 means "until none can tell them apart."
Line 4, "whirling in the wind," shows the snow dancing in the wind.
Line 5 ends with tsutsu, leaving the continuing fall as a lingering image. Where 17 sang of snow on a field of young greens, here snow falls on the plum.
Author: Minamoto no Sanetomo
Source: Kinkaishu
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