Himugashi no no ni kagiroi no tatsu miete kaerimi sureba tsuki katabukinu

東の野にかぎろひの立つ見えて
かへり見すれば月かたぶきぬ

Roma-ji: Himugashi no no ni kagiroi no tatsu miete kaerimi sureba tsuki katabukinu
English Translation: Over the east plain
I see the dawn's first glimmer
rising into light,
and when I turn to look back,
the moon is sinking westward.
Meaning: On the eastern plain I see the first light of dawn rising, and when I turn to look back, the moon is sinking low in the west.
Commentary: Book One Miscellaneous Poems 48

Headnote continued from the preceding poem: "A poem composed by Kakinomoto no Asomi Hitomaro when Prince Karu lodged on the plain of Aki — short poem"
Seeing the first light of dawn break over the eastern plain and, turning back, the moon about to set in the western sky, the poet captures a magnificent daybreak. Its composition, holding sunrise in the east and moonset in the west within a single poem, is celebrated as one of the finest landscape poems in the Man'yōshū. Some read the rising sun as Prince Karu, who will carry the new age, and the setting moon as the late Prince Kusakabe.
Kakinomoto no Hitomaro was a court poet active in the reigns of Empress Jitō and Emperor Monmu, and he is the foremost poet of the Man'yōshū. Though his rank appears to have been low, he left many grand and dignified poems, above all long poems, and later ages revered him as a "saint of poetry."

The first line, read himugashi no, names the east, the direction of sunrise, opening the scene of daybreak.
In the second line, kagiroi is the light that shines in the eastern sky at dawn, thought here to be the first rays rising over the plain of Aki on a winter morning.
The third line, "I see it rising," continues in a continuative form.
The fourth line, "when I turn to look back," is a conditional of fact. It marks the sweeping turn of the gaze from east to west and is the hinge of the poem's composition.
In the last line, katabuku means to lean or sink and nu is perfective: "the moon has sunk low in the west." Through the contrast of dawn light in the east and lingering moon in the west, it portrays the grand passage from night to morning.
Author: Kakinomoto no Hitomaro
Source: Manyoshu
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