On the autumn wind,
with their voices raised like sails,
come the passing ships—
yet they are but the wild geese
crossing Heaven’s narrow strait.

Meaning

On the autumn wind, with their cries lifted like sails, what seems like a ship advancing is in fact wild geese crossing the strait of the heavens.

Commentary

Book Four Autumn Poems (Part One)

This poem was paired in a poetry contest held in the imperial court during the Kanpyō era.

A line of wild geese flying through the autumn wind is likened to a ship moving across the sea. Their cries are compared to the raising of sails, with a play on “ho,” meaning both “sail” and “to stand out.”

“Amano-to” refers to a narrow strait, originally meaning a constricted part of the sea. It may be understood as the sky likened to the sea, or as a narrow part of the Milky Way.

Author

Fujiwara no Sugane

Source

Kokin Wakashu

Other

Through springtime haze the wild geese once passed away— yet now they cry, above the drifting autumn mist, their voices heard once more.
In the chill of night, as if to borrow a robe— the wild geese cry out; and beneath the bush clover, the lower leaves have turned and fade.
My troubled thoughts I string together one by one— like the wild geese’ cries, that pass across the autumn sky night after night in their flight.
In mountain villages, autumn is the loneliest— again and again, awakened by the stag’s cry, I rise from uneasy sleep.

On the autumn wind, with their voices raised like sails, come the passing ships— yet they are but the wild geese crossing Heaven’s narrow strait.

On the autumn wind,
with their voices raised like sails,
come the passing ships—
yet they are but the wild geese
crossing Heaven’s narrow strait.