Akane sasu hi narabenaku ni aga koi wa yoshino no kawa no kiri ni tachitsutsu

あかねさす日並べなくに我が恋は
吉野の川の霧に立ちつつ

Roma-ji: Akane sasu hi narabenaku ni aga koi wa yoshino no kawa no kiri ni tachitsutsu
English Translation: Madder-glowing days—
not many days have passed, and
yet this love of mine
over the Yoshino River
keeps on rising as the mist
Meaning: Not many days have passed since I set out, and yet this love of mine keeps rising, rising, as the mist over the Yoshino River.
Commentary: Book Six Miscellaneous Poems 916

Headnote continued from the preceding poem: "An envoy in a certain book reads"
This poem expresses longing for someone far away: though not many days have passed since setting out, the poet's love keeps rising as mist over the Yoshino River. It is the second of two poems that another book attached as envoys to Kurumamochi no Chitose's long poem 913.
The conceit is that the sighs of love rise up as mist, and the mist hanging over the Yoshino River is seen as the very form of the poet's longing. The feeling of already yearning so soon after departure is laid over the Yoshino landscape.
The left note to this sequence reads: "The year and month of the above are unclear, but because the poems are of the same kind they are placed next. A certain book says they were composed when the Emperor made a progress to the detached palace at Yoshino in the fifth month of Yōrō 7." The date of composition is unknown, but being Yoshino poems they were placed after Kasa no Kanamura's poems from the Yoshino progress of Yōrō 7 (723), and another book records them as composed on that very progress.
The poet, Kurumamochi no Chitose, was a court poet of the early Nara period whose life is otherwise unknown. Chitose composed poems while accompanying imperial progresses in the same period as Kasa no Kanamura and Yamabe no Akahito.

Where the preceding poem, 915, entrusts longing to the ceaseless sound of the river, this poem entrusts love to the mist rising from it, so the two envoys from the other book voice the same feeling through two aspects of the Yoshino River: its sound and its mist.
The first line, "Madder-glowing," meaning shining with a madder-red hue, is a pillow word that modifies "day."
The second line, "not many days have passed," means "though I have not yet counted many days," and "-naku ni" is a concessive formed from the negative "zu." It shows that the journey has only just begun.
The third line, "yet this love of mine," uses the particle "wa" to single out the poet's own love as the subject and leads on to the scene of the lower verse.
The fourth line, "of the Yoshino River," names the river at the site of the progress and takes up the pure riverbed praised in the long poem.
The final line, "keeps rising as the mist," means "goes on rising in the form of mist," with "ni" meaning "as" and "tsutsu" expressing continuation. The poem closes by laying the idea that the sighs of love become mist over the mist of the Yoshino River.
Author: Kurumamochi no Chitose
Source: Manyoshu
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