Kusamakura musubisadamemu kata shirazu narawanu nobe no yume no kayoiji - Shin Kokin Wakashu(English Translation & Meaning)

草枕結び定めむ方知らず
慣らはぬ野辺の夢の通ひ路

Roma-ji: Kusamakura musubisadamemu kata shirazu narawanu nobe no yume no kayoiji
English Translation: My pillow of grass,
which way should I tie it now?
I do not know, here
on a moor I've never known,
the path of dreams to you.
Meaning: I do not know which way to bind my pillow of grass for this night's traveling sleep; on this unfamiliar moor, how shall I find the path of dreams to you?
Commentary: Book Fourteen Love Poems IV 1315

Headnote continued from the preceding poem: "For the Minase Contest of Fifteen Love Poems."
This is the fourth poem of the sequence of love poems from the contests at the Bureau of Poetry and at Minase. Sleeping on an unfamiliar moor, the speaker says, I do not know which way to bind my grass pillow for the path of dreams. Continuing from the preceding poem, it was submitted to the Minase Contest of Fifteen Love Poems.
The author, "Masatsune," was a son of Fujiwara no Yoritsune and founded the Asukai house of kemari football and poetry. He was one of the compilers of the Shinkokinshū.
As in the anonymous poem in Love Poems I of the Kokinshū, "Night after night I cannot find which way to set my pillow: how did I sleep the night you appeared in my dream?" it was believed that setting one's pillow in a certain direction would bring the beloved into one's dreams.

The first line, "kusamakura," a pillow of bound grass, stands for sleeping on a journey.
The second line, "musubisadamemu," means "which way shall I bind and set it." It takes up "makura sadamemu" in the Kokinshū poem.
The third line, "kata shirazu," means "I do not know the direction," and the poem breaks after it.
The fourth line, "narawanu nobe no," means "of a moor I am not used to." On an unknown moor far from home, the usual direction of the pillow is of no help.
The last line, "yume no kayoiji," ends on a noun. It names the path by which one visits the beloved in dreams, overlaying the unease of sleeping on a journey with the fear that one may not meet the beloved even in dreams.
Author: Fujiwara no Masatsune
Source: Shin Kokin Wakashu
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