Sasa no ha wa miyama mo saya ni sayagedomo ware wa imo omou wakarekinureba

笹の葉はみ山もさやにさやげども
我れは妹思ふ別れ来ぬれば

Roma-ji: Sasa no ha wa miyama mo saya ni sayagedomo ware wa imo omou wakarekinureba
English Translation: Though the bamboo grass
sets the whole mountain rustling,
rustling in the wind,
I think only of my wife,
for I have left her behind.
Meaning: Though the leaves of bamboo grass rustle and stir all across the mountain, I think only of my wife, for I have come away from her.
Commentary: Book Two Love Poems 133

Headnote continued from the preceding poem: "Poems by Kakinomoto no Asomi Hitomaro when he parted from his wife in the province of Iwami and came up to the capital, two envoys"
Amid the bamboo grass rustling across the whole mountain, he thinks only of the wife he has left behind. The stirring grass and the stillness of his single-minded thought are set against each other, and the poem is famous as one of Hitomaro's finest short poems.
The sequence Hitomaro composed when he parted from his wife in Iwami and traveled up to the capital is known as the Iwami love poems and is famous as one of his masterpieces. This is the second of the two envoys attached to the long poem 131.
The author, Kakinomoto no Hitomaro, was a court poet active in the reigns of Empress Jitō and Emperor Monmu. A master of the long poem and the elegy, he is the representative poet of the Man'yōshū and was later revered as the Saint of Poetry.

The first line, "sasa no ha wa," refers to the bamboo grass growing thick along the mountain path.
In the second line, "miyama mo saya ni," mi is an honorific prefix and saya ni means with a rustling sound, showing the whole mountain astir.
In the third line, "sayagedomo," sayagu means to rustle and domo is concessive. The saya of the second line and the sayage of the third repeat the sa sound, rendering the rustling in sound itself.
The fourth line, "ware wa imo omou," means "yet I think of my wife" and is hypermetric, with eight syllables. The poem pauses here.
The final line, "wakarekinureba," means "because I have parted from her and come away," giving the reason for his thoughts at the end by inversion.
Author: Kakinomoto no Hitomaro
Source: Manyoshu
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