Yamato ni wa nakite ka kuramu yobukodori kisa no nakayama yobi zo koyu naru

大和には鳴きてか来らむ呼子鳥
象の中山呼びぞ越ゆなる

Roma-ji: Yamato ni wa nakite ka kuramu yobukodori kisa no nakayama yobi zo koyu naru
English Translation: To Yamato now
has it flown, crying, I wonder—
the calling-bird that
over Kisa's middle ridge
I hear crossing, calling out.
Meaning: Has it reached Yamato by now, crying as it goes—that calling bird I hear crossing the ridge of Kisa, calling out?
Commentary: Book One Miscellaneous Poems 70

Headnote: "A poem composed by Takechi no Muraji Kurohito when the Retired Empress journeyed to the Yoshino Palace"
Attending a royal journey to the Yoshino Palace, the poet hears a calling-bird crying as it crosses the ridge of Kisa and wonders whether it has reached Yamato by now, crying as it goes. In the voice of a bird that seems to call to people, he overlays his own longing for his home and loved ones in Yamato.
Takechi no Kurohito was a poet of the reigns of Empress Jitō and Emperor Monmu whose rank and career are unknown. Many of his poems come from royal journeys, and he excelled at landscape poems that quietly gaze on the loneliness of travel.

The first line, "to Yamato," names at the outset where his longing turns. Yoshino too lies within Yamato Province, but here the heart of Yamato, where the capital stands, is meant.
In the second line, the questioning particle ka is answered by the attributive of the conjectural ramu in a kakari-musubi: "has it arrived there, crying?"
The third line, yobukodori, is a bird whose cry sounds like a call, thought to be a kind of cuckoo. Ending on a noun, it lets the name resound with yobu, "to call."
The fourth line names the middle ridge of Kisa near the Yoshino Palace, around Mount Kisa, thought to be near present-day Miyataki in Yoshino, Nara Prefecture.
In the last line, the particle zo is answered by naru, the attributive of the auxiliary of inference by sound, in a kakari-musubi: "it seems to be crossing, calling." It shows that the bird is heard but not seen, and repeats the yobu of the third line's bird name.
Author: Takechi no Kurohito
Source: Manyoshu
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