Toshinoha ni kakumo miteshika miyoshino no kiyoki kōchi no tagitsu shiranami

年のはにかくも見てしかみ吉野の
清き河内のたぎつ白波

Roma-ji: Toshinoha ni kakumo miteshika miyoshino no kiyoki kōchi no tagitsu shiranami
English Translation: Year after year
thus would I gaze upon them—
in fair Yoshino,
within the pure river bend,
the white waves that surge and churn
Meaning: Every year I long to look upon them just like this: the white waves churning through the clear river bend of fair Yoshino.
Commentary: Book Six Miscellaneous Poems 908

Headnote continued from the preceding poem: "Two envoys"
This poem expresses the wish to see, year after year, the white waves surging through the pure river bend of fair Yoshino. The long poem immediately before it (907) is titled "A poem composed by Kasa no Asomi Kanamura when the Emperor made a progress to the detached palace at Yoshino in the fifth month of summer in the seventh year of Yōrō," and was written while accompanying Empress Genshō on her journey to Yoshino in the fifth month of Yōrō 7 (723). Where the long poem praised the Akitsu palace at Yoshino as a place ordained since the age of the gods, this envoy gathers the hope that such progresses will be repeated every year into a single image: the white waves of the rapids.
Wishing to see the scene again every year, as in "year after year" and "thus would I gaze," follows the pattern of poems composed on imperial progresses, in which praising the land becomes a way of celebrating the lasting reign of the sovereign. Book Six opens with these poems from the Yoshino progress of Yōrō 7 and goes on to arrange the court poets' progress poems in chronological order.
The poet, Kasa no Kanamura, was a court poet of the early Nara period who accompanied the sovereigns from Empress Genshō to Emperor Shōmu on their progresses and left many poems of praise. Together with Yamabe no Akahito, he is regarded as a representative poet of the age.

The two envoys form a pair: this poem sings of "the white waves that surge and churn" within the pure river bend, while the next poem, 909, declares that "the river bend of the rapids" can never be gazed upon enough. Both take up the river bend and praise the torrent of the Yoshino River from two angles.
The first line, "Year after year," means every year, and assumes that the imperial progresses will continue to take place annually from now on.
The second line, "thus would I gaze upon them," means "I wish to see them like this." "Thus" points to the very scene before the poet's eyes, and "-teshika" is a final particle expressing the speaker's own wish. The sense breaks here, making this a poem with a pause after the second line.
In the third line, "in fair Yoshino," the prefix "mi-" is an honorific that speaks of Yoshino with reverence. It echoes "the Akitsu palace of fair Yoshino" in the long poem.
The fourth line, "within the pure river bend," praises the purity of the land embraced by the winding Yoshino River as it flows among the hills. "Pure" is a word used again and again in poems praising Yoshino, and it resonates with the long poem's "the mountains and rivers so pure and so clear."
The final line, "the white waves that surge and churn," closes on a noun, vividly impressing the image of the rushing torrent before the eyes. What "thus" in the second line pointed to is revealed only in this last line.
Author: Kasa no Kanamura
Source: Manyoshu
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