Mitatashi no shima no ariso o ima mireba oizarishi kusa oinikeru kamo

み立たしの島の荒礒を今見れば
生ひざりし草生ひにけるかも

Roma-ji: Mitatashi no shima no ariso o ima mireba oizarishi kusa oinikeru kamo
English Translation: Now when I look at
the rocky shore of the garden isle
where he used to stand,
grass that never grew before
has come to grow up there.
Meaning: Looking now at the rocky shore of the garden isle where our prince used to stand, I see that grass which never grew there before has sprung up.
Commentary: Book Two Elegies 181

Headnote continued from the preceding poem: "Twenty-three poems composed in grief by the attendants of the Prince's palace"
On the rocks of the garden where the prince once stood gazing, grass that never grew before has now appeared; the speaker sees the passing of time in the first signs of neglect in a once well-tended garden.
According to the headnote, these are twenty-three poems composed in grief by the attendants who served in Prince Kusakabe's palace. A left note, citing the Nihon shoki, records that the prince died in the fourth month of the third year of Empress Jitō's reign (689). The sequence takes up, scene by scene, the laments of the attendants: the garden and ponds of the Shima Palace bereft of their master, and the night watches they kept on the hills of Mayumi and Sada where the prince lay in state. This is the eleventh poem of the sequence.
The authors were the attendants who served in Prince Kusakabe's palace, and their individual names have not come down to us. Toneri were officials who served close to the Emperor and members of the imperial family as guards and aides. One theory holds that Kakinomoto no Hitomaro composed the poems in the attendants' voice, but this is not settled.

The first line, "mitatashi no," means "where he used to stand," the same first line as the eighth poem of the sequence, 178, and others.
In the second line, "shima no ariso o," ariso means a rocky shore; here the rockwork of the garden pond is likened to a rugged coast.
The third line, "ima mireba," means "when I look now," setting the present against the days when the prince was alive.
In the fourth line, "oizarishi kusa," zari is negative and shi the attributive of the past ki: grass that did not grow before.
The final line, "oinikeru kamo," means "has now grown," and repeating oi in the fourth and fifth lines sharpens the difference from the past.
Source: Manyoshu
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