Uchinabiki haru wa ki ni keri yamakawa no iwama no kōri kyō ya tokuramu - Kinyo Wakashu(English Translation & Meaning)

うちなびき春は来にけり山川の
岩間の氷今日や解くらむ

Roma-ji: Uchinabiki haru wa ki ni keri yamakawa no iwama no kōri kyō ya tokuramu
English Translation: Trailing all along,
spring has come at last, it seems;
in the mountain stream
the ice among the boulders
may be melting on this day
Meaning: Spring has come at last. In the mountain stream, I wonder, is the ice wedged among the rocks melting away today?
Commentary: Book One Spring Poems 1

The poet imagines that on the first day of spring the ice locked among the rocks of a distant mountain stream is beginning to melt. The arrival of spring is entrusted to a thaw he cannot see, and the poem has a broad, bright cadence.
The idea that the first wind of spring melts the ice goes back to Ki no Tsurayuki's poem in the Kokinshū beginning 'Sode hichite'. This poem inherits that pattern while focusing on a concrete place, the rocks of a mountain stream.
This is the opening poem of the Kin'yōwakashū. Set against poem 93 at the end of the book, which bids farewell to spring, it announces the beginning of the season.
The author, Akisue, is Fujiwara no Akisue. A son of Fujiwara no Takatsune, he was trusted as a close retainer of Emperor Shirakawa because his mother had been the emperor's wet nurse, and he rose to Master of the Office of Palace Repairs. He founded the Rokujō Fujiwara house of poetry.

First line, 'uchinabiki', is a pillow word for 'spring'. Drawn from the way grasses sway in spring, this archaic word, common in the Man'yōshū, is placed at the head of the anthology.
Second line, 'haru wa ki ni keri', combines the perfective auxiliary nu with the exclamatory keri, expressing the sudden realization that spring has come. The poem breaks after the second line.
Third line, 'yamakawa no', refers to a river flowing through the mountains.
Fourth line, 'iwama no kōri', is the ice formed between the rocks, set here as the last emblem of winter.
Final line, 'kyō ya tokuramu', uses the conjectural ramu to imagine that the unseen ice is now melting. Paired with the particle ya, it becomes a questioning guess.
Author: Fujiwara no Akisue
Source: Kinyo Wakashu
Next Poem: Haru tachite kozue ni kienu shirayuki wa madaki ni sakeru hana ka to zo miru