Furusato wa asaji ga sue ni narihatete tsuki ni nokoreru hito no omokage - Shin Kokin Wakashu(English Translation & Meaning)

故郷は浅茅が末になり果てて
月に残れる人の面影

Roma-ji: Furusato wa asaji ga sue ni narihatete tsuki ni nokoreru hito no omokage
English Translation: My old village now
has become in the end
tips of low reed grass—
lingering in the moonlight,
the likeness of one once here.
Meaning: My old village has gone entirely to the tips of low reeds, and only in the moonlight does the image of one who lived here linger.
Commentary: Book Seventeen Miscellaneous Poems II 1681

Headnote: "When I composed a hundred-poem sequence."
This is the second poem of the sequence on a ruined old home. The old village has gone entirely to low reeds, and the image of one who lived there lingers only in the moonlight. According to the headnote, it was composed for a hundred-poem sequence.
The author, "Sesshō Daijō-daijin," is Fujiwara no Yoshitsune. A son of Kujō Kanezane, he rose to Regent and Chancellor. He wrote the Kana Preface of the Shin Kokinshū.

The first line, "furusato wa," means "my old village where I once lived."
The second line, "asaji ga sue ni," means "into the tips of low reed grass." It takes up "asaji ga hara" of the preceding poem.
The third line, "narihatete," means "having become entirely."
The fourth line, "tsuki ni nokoreru," means "lingering in the moonlight," showing that only the moon lighting the ruined village is unchanged from the past.
The last line, "hito no omokage," ends in a noun, closing on the image of someone now dead or gone. Where the preceding poem imagined the ruin of the old home from afar, here one standing in the ruined village sees a face in the moon.
Author: Fujiwara no Yoshitsune
Source: Shin Kokin Wakashu
Prev Poem: Suminareshi waga furusato wa kono goro ya asaji ga hara ni uzura nakuran
Next Poem: Kore ya mishi mukashi sumiken ato naran yomogi ga tsuyu ni tsuki no kakareru