Michi tōshi hodo mo haruka ni hedatareri omoi okose yo ware mo wasureji - Shin Kokin Wakashu(English Translation & Meaning)

道遠しほども遥かに隔たれり
思ひおこせよ我も忘れじ

Roma-ji: Michi tōshi hodo mo haruka ni hedatareri omoi okose yo ware mo wasureji
English Translation: Long is the road,
and the distance, too, is vast,
so far apart we lie—
send your thoughts to me from there;
I, too, will not forget.
Meaning: The road is long, and the distance between us vast. Send your thoughts to me from afar; I, too, will never forget you.
Commentary: Book Nineteen Poems on the Gods 1859

Headnote: "It is said this poem appeared in the dream of a man living in Michinoku who had vowed to worship at Kumano three years running; the journey was so hard that he lay before the god lamenting how he could manage the two remaining times."
This is the eighth poem in the sequence of poems composed by the gods. The road is long and the distance great, says the god, so send your thoughts from afar; I, too, will not forget. According to the left note, a man living in Michinoku vowed to worship at Kumano three years in a row, but the journey was so painful that he lay before the god lamenting how he could make the two remaining pilgrimages, and the poem appeared in his dream that night. The god, mindful of the pilgrim's suffering, assures him that he need not force the long journey, for the god will not forget one whose heart turns toward him.
The poem has no headnote; a left note follows it instead. In this text the left note is placed under the number of the next poem, but its content shows that it belongs to this poem, so it is cited here as the headnote.
No author is named in the original; the left note shows it to be the utterance of the Kumano Deity. Kumano, in Kii Province, is a sacred site made up of the three shrines of Hongū, Shingū, and Nachi, and in the late Heian period retired emperors and nobles made frequent pilgrimages there.

The first line, "michi tōshi," means "the road is long," and the poem pauses here.
In the second line, "hodo mo haruka ni," "hodo" means distance: the great span from Michinoku to Kumano.
The third line, "hedatareri," means "we lie far apart," ending firmly with the continuative auxiliary "ri" and pausing again. The two breaks, after the first and third lines, press home the length of the road.
The fourth line, "omoi okose yo," means "send your thoughts here"; "okosu" is a verb meaning to send from there to here. In place of the body's journey, the god asks for the journey of the heart.
The last line, "ware mo wasureji," means "I, too, will not forget," closing with the negative volitional "ji." Where the preceding poem showed a god waiting for one who did not come, this one has a god promising not to forget one who cannot complete his pilgrimages, so that the waiting god and the consoling god stand side by side.
Author: Kumano Deity (per the left note)
Source: Shin Kokin Wakashu
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