Sakurabana saku to mishi ma ni chirinikeri yume ka utsutsu ka haru no yamakaze

桜花咲くと見しまに散りにけり
夢か現か春の山風

Roma-ji: Sakurabana saku to mishi ma ni chirinikeri yume ka utsutsu ka haru no yamakaze
English Translation: Cherry blossoms bloomed—
or so I thought, and in that moment
they had scattered down;
was it a dream, or was it real,
O mountain wind of spring?
Meaning: I had barely seen the cherry blossoms bloom when they scattered—was it a dream, or was it real, O mountain wind of spring?
Commentary: Spring Poems 72

Headnote continued from the preceding poem: "Toward the end of the third month I visited Shōchōju-in; seeing a monk hidden in the shade of the hill, I asked him about the blossoms, and he answered that they had fallen. Hearing this"
Written on the same occasion as the preceding poem, it laments the fleetingness of cherries that fell almost as soon as they bloomed, asking whether it was dream or reality. The brief life of the flowers is overlaid with thoughts of the transience of this world. Kamo no Mabuchi said the fourth line does not suit the poet.
The expression of uncertainty between dream and waking appears in Kokinshū poems such as the one asking whether the world is a dream or reality, since things exist and yet do not.

Line 1 names the blossoms the poet heard had fallen in the preceding poem, 71.
Line 2 means "in the moment I saw them bloom," stressing the brevity.
Line 3 is the same line as in the preceding poem, and the poem pauses here.
Line 4 asks whether it was dream or reality, the line Mabuchi found unsuitable.
Line 5 ends on a noun, placing last the mountain wind that scattered the flowers, the same closing as 40.
Author: Minamoto no Sanetomo
Source: Kinkaishu
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