Ima shi wa to omoishi hodo ni sakurabana chiru ko no moto ni hikazu henubeshi

今しはと思ひしほどに桜花
散る木のもとに日数経ぬべし

Roma-ji: Ima shi wa to omoishi hodo ni sakurabana chiru ko no moto ni hikazu henubeshi
English Translation: "Now it's time to go,"
so I thought, and all the while
of the cherry blossoms,
beneath the trees where they fall,
I'll spend many days, I fear.
Meaning: Just as I thought it was time to leave, I find I'm likely to spend days on end beneath the trees where the cherry blossoms fall.
Commentary: Spring Poems 59

Headnote: "On a folding-screen painting of many travelers lying beneath the blossoms"
This poem responds to a screen painting of many travelers lying beneath cherry trees. Taking the heart of the travelers, the poet says that though they mean to set out now, drawn by the falling blossoms they are likely to spend many days beneath the trees. Four poems on the same painting begin here.
One character in the fourth line of the base text is hard to read, so the common reading chiru ko no moto ni has been adopted.

Line 1: shi is emphatic, expressing the thought that it is now time to depart.
Line 2 means "while I was thinking so."
Line 3 names the blossoms that hold the traveler back.
Line 4 names the place beneath the trees where blossoms fall, leading into "beneath the trees" from the next poem, 60, on.
Line 5: nubeshi means "will surely end up," echoing "have spent many days" in the preceding poem, 58.
Author: Minamoto no Sanetomo
Source: Kinkaishu
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