Shimashiku mo yukite miteshika kamunabi no fuchi wa asenite se ni ka naruramu

しましくも行きて見てしか神なびの
淵はあせにて瀬にかなるらむ

Roma-ji: Shimashiku mo yukite miteshika kamunabi no fuchi wa asenite se ni ka naruramu
English Translation: If only for a while
I would go and see it once—
at Kamunabi,
has the deep pool grown shallow,
has it now become a shoal?
Meaning: If only for a little while, I long to go and see it. Has the deep pool at Kamunabi grown shallow and turned into a shoal?
Commentary: Book Six Miscellaneous Poems 969

Headnote: "Two poems composed by Lord Ōtomo, the Major Counselor, thinking of his old home while at his house in Nara, in the third year, the year of kanoto-hitsuji"
The poem longs to go, even for a moment, to see the old home, and wonders whether the deep pool at Kamunabi has grown shallow and turned into a shoal. It is the first of two poems that Ōtomo no Tabito, back from the Dazaifu, composed at his house in Nara in Tenpyō 3 (731), thinking of his old home. That home is thought to be Asuka, where the capital had once stood, and the pool at Kamunabi is taken to be a pool of the Asuka River flowing there.
Having returned to the capital after long years in Tsukushi, Tabito worries over how the river of his old home, close by yet beyond his reach, may have changed. The image of a pool turning into a shoal holds a feeling for things that shift with the passing of time, an idea that anticipates the later Kokinshū poem, "In this world of ours what is constant? In the Asuka River, yesterday's deep pool is today a shoal." Tabito died in the seventh month of that year, and this is a work of his last days.
The poet, Ōtomo no Tabito, was the son of Ōtomo no Yasumaro and the father of Yakamochi. Toward the end of the Jinki era he went down to Tsukushi as Governor-General of the Dazaifu, and in the twelfth month of Tenpyō 2 (730) he was appointed Major Counselor and returned to the capital. He died the following year, in the seventh month of Tenpyō 3 (731), as a Major Counselor of the Junior Second Rank.

With the next poem, 970, this poem forms a pair: both use "go" to express the wish to visit the old home. While this poem speaks of the present wish with "if only for a while," the next sets a later time, "when the flowers fall," so that the two contrast in their sense of time.
The first line, "If only for a while," means "even for a short time." Asking not for long but only for a brief moment reveals how keenly he wishes to visit his old home.
The second line, "I would go and see it once," means "I wish I could go and see it," with "-teshika" a final particle expressing the speaker's own wish. The sense breaks here, after the second line.
The third line, "at Kamunabi," names a grove or hill where a god descends and dwells, here thought to be the Kamunabi of Asuka.
The fourth line, "has the deep pool grown shallow," imagines how the pool that once lay deep and still has become shallow over time.
The final line, "has it now become a shoal?" means "has it turned into a shoal, I wonder." "Ka" is an interrogative binding particle, resolved by the attributive form of the present-conjectural auxiliary "ramu." He is imagining the state of the home that lies beyond his sight.
Author: Ōtomo no Tabito
Source: Manyoshu
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