Ausaka no seki no sekiya no itabisashi mabara nareba ya hana no moruramu

逢坂の関の関屋の板びさし
まばらなればや花の漏るらむ

Roma-ji: Ausaka no seki no sekiya no itabisashi mabara nareba ya hana no moruramu
English Translation: At Ōsaka Barrier
the guardhouse at the barrier—
its eaves of planking
must be gaping full of gaps,
for blossoms slip through to me.
Meaning: The plank eaves of the guardhouse at the Ōsaka Barrier must be full of gaps—that must be why the blossoms slip through.
Commentary: Spring Poems 68

Headnote continued from the preceding poem: "Blossoms on the barrier road"
The poet wonders whether the blossoms slip in through gaps in the sparse plank eaves of the guardhouse at the Ōsaka Barrier. A barrier lets no one pass, yet blossoms slip through the gaps in its eaves—a witty poem that closes the four poems on the Ōsaka Barrier.
The Ruijū text places it among the miscellaneous poems. The decay of a barrier hut's plank eaves is also sung in Fujiwara no Yoshitsune's Shinkokinshū poem on the deserted Fuwa barrier hut, through whose eaves only the autumn wind now passes.

Line 1 opens the last of the four Ōsaka Barrier poems.
Line 2 repeats seki ("barrier") for rhythm, naming the guardhouse.
Line 3, "its eaves of planking," breaks the poem, and the lower verse describes them.
Line 4: ya is interrogative, asking whether the gaps are the cause.
Line 5 concludes ya with the attributive ramu. Where 67 lamented no guard to stop the blossoms, here the guardhouse itself cannot hold them, forming a pair.
Author: Minamoto no Sanetomo
Source: Kinkaishu
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