Shunzei poem

Shinkokinshu, Love 2, No. 1107
Sent to a woman on a rainy day.

When I gaze off
toward your skies,
unable to bear the longing,
the spring rain falls,
parting the mist.

Shunzei

This poem was interesting to me both because of the emotive qualities that it held and also because of the barrier in the poem, and its apparent fix. Here, Shunzei seems to feel so strongly about a woman that nature itself expresses his feelings, extending a rain shower over the mist which hides his love form his view. At first this seems okay to me, but looking at it a second time, I began to think how the rain would most likely be a even bigger barrier than the mist which it had just parted. Perhaps it is not the love who is ever revealed, but rather his feelings about having to be separated by whatever social barrier keeps them apart. In the mist, the situation might have been obscured and unclear, but with the rain, or perhaps a downpour of tears, even though his love may still not be in sight, his feeling about this love may now have finally broken through.