Furusato ni kaeru karigane sayo fukete kumoji ni mayou koe kikoyu nari

English Translation

Home to their old land
the wild geese are returning
and the night grows late
and lost among cloudy roads
their voices can still be heard

Meaning

The geese are going home, and as the night deepens their voices can be heard, astray somewhere on the roads of cloud.

Commentary

Book One Spring Poems I 60

Headnote: topic unknown.
The third poem in the run on returning geese takes their cries by night. The two before it were set at daybreak; here the hour has shifted while the subject continues. The headnote gives no topic and nothing is known of the circumstances.
The poet is recorded only as unknown.
The time is late on a spring night; no place is given.
The occasion of composition is not recorded.

The first line names the old country the geese are returning to, in the north. It is their home, not the speaker's.
The word in the second line means the cry of a goose, and by extension the bird itself.
The third line, with a rhythmic prefix, says that the night has grown late.
The fourth line has the birds losing their way among roads of cloud. Whether they are truly lost cannot be seen; it is heard, in the disorder of their calling.
The final auxiliary, as in the previous poem, marks inference from sound. Three poems running now catch geese that cannot be seen by their voices alone.

Author

Unknown Poet

Source

Shin Kokin Wakashu

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