Shio fureba ashibe ni sawaku shiratazu no tsuma yobu koe wa miya mo todoro ni

潮干れば葦辺に騒く白鶴の
妻呼ぶ声は宮もとどろに

Roma-ji: Shio fureba ashibe ni sawaku shiratazu no tsuma yobu koe wa miya mo todoro ni
English Translation: When the tide ebbs out,
among the reeds they clamor,
the white cranes, and their
cries as they call their mates ring
so the palace itself resounds
Meaning: When the tide ebbs, the white cranes clamor among the reeds, and their cries as they call to their mates make the very palace resound.
Commentary: Book Six Miscellaneous Poems 1064

Headnote continued from the preceding poem: "Two envoys"
The poem says that when the tide goes out, the white cranes clamoring among the reeds call to their mates, and their voices resound all the way to the palace. The long poem immediately before it (1062) is titled "A poem composed at the Naniwa palace"; it praises the Naniwa palace, where the sovereign comes again and again, with scenes of the pure beach facing the sea where jewels are gathered, the plovers calling their mates on the sandbars, and the cries of cranes echoing among the reeds, and closes with "the Ajifu palace, which I can never tire of beholding." This is the second of its two envoys; taking up the long poem's "the cries of cranes echo among the reeds," it praises the seaside palace through the cranes' voices ringing through it. Where the preceding poem, 1063, sang of the fishermen's boats seen by the eye, this poem sings of the cranes' cries heard by the ear.
The Naniwa palace stood in what is now Chūō Ward, Osaka; it was rebuilt in the reign of Emperor Shōmu and was briefly made the imperial capital in Tenpyō 16 (744).
The twenty-one poems from 1047 through 1067, the last poem of the book, are covered by the closing left note: "The above twenty-one poems appear in the Tanabe no Sakimaro Collection." According to this note they were taken from the Tanabe no Sakimaro Collection, and they are thought to be Sakimaro's own compositions.
The poet, Tanabe no Sakimaro, was a poet of the mid-Nara period; in Tenpyō 20 (748) he served as a clerk of the Office of Sake Brewing and acted as an envoy for the Minister of the Left, Tachibana no Moroe. He is regarded as one of the representative poets of the last phase of the Man'yōshū, carrying on the tradition of ceremonial long poems at court.

The conceit of combining tide, reeds and cranes is shared with Yamabe no Akahito's 919 of this book, "as the tide comes in at Waka Bay, the lagoon vanishes, and toward the reeds the cranes fly crying," forming a reversed composition: Akahito's poem sings of the rising tide, this poem of the ebbing tide. It also shares "ebb tide" and "cranes" with Emperor Shōmu's 1030, "over the tidal flats at ebb the cranes fly crying."
The first line, "When the tide ebbs out," uses "fure," the realis form of the verb "fu" (to ebb, to dry up), plus "ba" to express the condition "whenever the tide recedes."
The second line, "among the reeds they clamor," means "they clamor at the reedy water's edge," showing the bustle of cranes foraging on the mudflats laid bare by the ebbing tide.
The third line, "the white cranes, and their," names the white cranes, the source of the "cries as they call their mates" in the fourth line.
The fourth line, "cries as they call their mates ring," means the cries of the birds calling their mates. Like "the plovers call their mates" in the long poem, it sings of birds crying for their partners.
The final line, "so the palace itself resounds," means "so that even the palace roars with it." Omitting a verb such as "echo," it breaks off with "ni," leaving the lingering sense of the cranes' voices filling the whole palace.
Author: Tanabe no Sakimaro
Source: Manyoshu
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