Knowing the historical context, the second seems 'correct' to me - but absent that context, both would be correct in the same way that light is both a wave and a particle. I tend to default to the context in which a piece was penned, so to speak, as the authoritative one, but really once something has been created and set loose in the world it's free to pick up new contexts and new meanings for new audiences.

Prior to reading your posts this week I hadn't realized just how ambiguous Japanese poetry can be in certain ways - e.g. this poem in particular is a brilliant example of how drastically different assumptions about which pronouns are appropriate changes the overall meaning of the poem - and now I'm bitten by the desire to know more. Aside from subscribing to your Dreamwidth journal (which I already do), are there any resources you'd recommend for finding out more about the topics you've covered this week?

Anyway, thank you for doing such an amazing job as a Poetry Host this week! I look forward to the chance to reread your posts in depth this evening when I'm putting together the weekly roundup. I'm sorry there hasn't been as robust an initial series of conversations in the comments as we sometimes have, but I thought you might want to know that your words have already spread outside of the Dreamwidth context: I ended up printing out copies of your 'Meta: translating Japanese' post and sharing them with the poetry workshop participants I mentioned to you to provide context for the ambiguities of only knowing a Japanese poet's work through translation. It substantially enriched the subsequent conversation we had there.