Mizutori no hakaze ni sawagu sazanami no ayashiki made mo nururu sode kana - Kinyo Wakashu(English Translation & Meaning)

水鳥の羽風に騒ぐさざ波の
あやしきまでも濡るる袖かな

Roma-ji: Mizutori no hakaze ni sawagu sazanami no ayashiki made mo nururu sode kana
English Translation: Like the rippling waves
that the water birds stir up
with their beating wings,
strangely, beyond all reason,
my sleeves are soaked through
Meaning: Like the ripples stirred by the wingbeats of water birds, my sleeves are wet to a degree beyond all reason.
Commentary: Book Seven Love Poems I 364

Taking as its preface the ripples stirred up by the wings of water birds, the poem sings of sleeves wet with tears to a strange degree. Onto the waterside scene it lays a heart thrown secretly into turmoil by love, and its tears.
Some manuscripts name Minamoto no Morotoshi as the author and give the headnote 'Composed on love likened to water birds.' It would then be a poem on that topic.

First line, 'mizutori no', means of the water birds. The oshi, mandarin duck, of poem 391 in this book is also a water bird.
Second line, 'hakaze ni sawagu', means stirred by the wind of their wings, laying over it a heart stirred by love.
Third line, 'sazanami no', means of the ripples, and from aya, the pattern of the waves, it leads into ayashiki in the fourth line. The first three lines form a preface.
Fourth line, 'ayashiki made mo', means to a strange degree, aya echoing the pattern of the ripples. 'Ayashi ya' in poem 367 in this book likewise echoes aya.
Final line, 'nururu sode kana', means how wet my sleeves are, with the exclamatory particle kana. Like 'sode nomi nurete' in the opening poem, 350, it sings of sleeves wet with the tears of love.
Source: Kinyo Wakashu
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