Nagametsutsu omou mo kanashi kaeru kari yukuramu kata no yūgure no sora

眺めつつ思ふも悲し帰る雁
行くらむ方の夕暮の空

Roma-ji: Nagametsutsu omou mo kanashi kaeru kari yukuramu kata no yūgure no sora
English Translation: Gazing out in thought,
even thinking of it brings grief—
geese returning north,
toward where they must be going,
the sky as evening falls.
Meaning: Gazing on in thought, even to think of it is sad—the evening sky in the direction where the homeward geese must be flying.
Commentary: Spring Poems 103

Headnote: "It was perhaps around the twentieth of the second month: I went out onto the north-facing veranda and, gazing alone at the evening sky, heard the geese crying, and composed this"
Around the twentieth of the second month, the poet stood alone on the north-facing veranda gazing at the evening sky and heard the cries of geese returning north; this poem expresses his feelings then. Gazing in reverie at the evening sky in the direction the geese are leaving, he reveals a lonely, poignant heart. Kamo no Mabuchi remarked that the headnote ought to read something like "stepping out onto the north veranda and facing the strange beauty of the evening sky."

Line 1 means "while gazing, lost in thought."
Line 2 means "even to think of it is sad," and the poem pauses here.
Line 3 names the geese returning north in spring, taking up "the wild geese returning" in the preceding poem, 102.
Line 4: ramu conjectures about the present, naming the direction the geese must now be heading; it echoes the "north-facing veranda" of the headnote.
Line 5 ends on a noun, naming in inversion the object of sorrow. Where the preceding poem sang of geese by the sea in daylight, here the poet hears them alone at dusk.
Author: Minamoto no Sanetomo
Source: Kinkaishu
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