Shirakumo to mine ni wa miete sakurabana chireba fumoto no yuki to koso mire - Kinyo Wakashu(English Translation & Meaning)

白雲と峰には見えて桜花
散れば麓の雪とこそ見れ

Roma-ji: Shirakumo to mine ni wa miete sakurabana chireba fumoto no yuki to koso mire
English Translation: Like a bank of clouds
white upon the peaks it shows,
the cherry blossom,
and when it falls, at the foot,
it is snow that I behold
Meaning: On the peaks the cherry blossoms look like white clouds, and when they scatter they look like snow at the foot of the mountain.
Commentary: Book Eleven Variant Poems 669

On the peaks where they bloom the cherry blossoms look like white clouds, and when they fall to the foot of the mountain they look like snow. Contrasting peak and foot, flowers in bloom and flowers falling, the poem sees the cherries as both white clouds and snow.
This poem is found only in a variant manuscript line of the anthology; in the variant order it is placed after 68 in Book One. Poem 36 in Book One also tells of what looked like white clouds on a distant peak turning out to be cherries, and shares the opening shirakumo to.

First line, 'shirakumo to', means as white clouds, seeing the cherries on the peaks as white clouds. It is the same as the first line of 36 in Book One.
Second line, 'mine ni wa miete', means appearing on the peaks, paired with fumoto, the foot, in the fourth line.
Third line, 'sakurabana', means the cherry blossoms, naming the subject of the poem.
Fourth line, 'chireba fumoto no', means when they fall, at the foot, the realis followed by ba.
Final line, 'yuki to koso mire', means they are seen as snow, the particle koso answered by the realis mire. It answers mine ni wa miete in the second line.
Source: Kinyo Wakashu
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