Chiri o dani sueji to ya omou yuku toshi no ato naki niwa o harau matsukaze

塵をだに据ゑじとや思ふ行く年の
跡なき庭を払ふ松風

Roma-ji: Chiri o dani sueji to ya omou yuku toshi no ato naki niwa o harau matsukaze
English Translation: Does it think to leave
not even a speck of dust?
Of the passing year
it sweeps the traceless garden,
the wind among the pines.
Meaning: Does it mean to leave not even a speck of dust? The wind in the pines sweeps the garden, where the departing year has left no trace.
Commentary: Winter Poems 397

Headnote: "The year's end"
This poem was composed on the theme of the year's end. Seeing the wind in the pines sweeping a garden where the departing year has left no trace, the poet wonders whether it means to leave not even a speck of dust. In a garden that seems swept clean at the year's end, he sees that the passing year leaves nothing behind.

Line 1: dani means "even."
Line 2: ji expresses negative intention and ya is an interrogative binding particle, concluded with the attributive omou; the poem pauses here.
Line 3 means "of the departing year." Line 3 of the next poem is the same, and the words open 406, the closing poem of this section.
Line 4 means "the garden without a trace of the departing year."
Line 5 ends on a noun, revealing last, by inversion, the wind in the pines that sweeps the garden.
Author: Minamoto no Sanetomo
Source: Kinkaishu
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