Idete yukishi hi o kazoetsutsu kyō kyō to a o matasuramu chichihahara wa mo

出でて行きし日を数へつつ今日今日と
我を待たすらむ父母らはも

Roma-ji: Idete yukishi hi o kazoetsutsu kyō kyō to a o matasuramu chichihahara wa mo
English Translation: Counting all the days
since the day that I set out,
"Today? Is it today?" —
waiting for me even now,
ah, my father and my mother!
Meaning: Counting the days since I left home, asking "Will it be today? Today?"—how my father and mother must be waiting for me!
Commentary: Book Five Miscellaneous Poems 890

Headnote continued from the preceding poem: "Six poems respectfully composed by Yamanoue no Okura, Governor of Chikuzen, in response, expressing Kumagori's feelings on his behalf, with preface"
The poem thinks of his parents, counting the days since he left and asking each day whether he will come home. It is a poignant poem of pity for parents who go on waiting, not knowing he is dying.
For the last line, a variant introduced as "one version says" reads "how sad for my mother." Here the main text is followed.
The preface records that Ōtomo no Kimi Kumagori, of Mashiki District in Higo, was on his way to the capital on the seventeenth day of the sixth month of Tenpyō 3, aged eighteen, as attendant to a provincial official serving as wrestling envoy, when he fell ill and died at the Takaba post station in Saeki District, Aki. On his deathbed he said that this borrowed body perishes easily and a life like foam cannot be held, but his aged parents in their hut were waiting for his return and would weep themselves blind on learning he would not come; what grieved him was not his own death but their suffering, and he composed six poems and died. Okura, speaking in Kumagori's place, wrote one long poem and five tanka.
The poet, Yamanoue no Okura, was an official who went to Tang China as a junior secretary with the embassy appointed in Taihō 1. After his return he served as Governor of Hōki and in the household of the Crown Prince, and late in the Jinki era he was posted to Tsukushi as Governor of Chikuzen. He is known for poems rooted in everyday life, on the sufferings of human existence, love for family, and poverty, written against a background of learning in Chinese classics and Buddhist scripture.

First line, "idete yukishi": six syllables, one more than the norm: "since I left home."
Second line, "hi o kazoetsutsu": "counting the days" from then.
Third line, "kyō kyō to": "today, today," the repetition expressing anxious waiting.
Fourth line, "a o matasuramu": "su" is honorific and "ramu" conjectures about the present: they must be waiting now.
Fifth line, "chichihahara wa mo": "wa mo" exclaims, closing on a noun as if calling to his distant parents.
Author: Yamanoue no Okura
Source: Manyoshu
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