Akikaze ni yamabuki no se no naru nae ni amakumo kakeru kari ni aeru kamo

秋風に山吹の瀬の鳴るなへに
天雲翔る雁に逢へるかも

Roma-ji: Akikaze ni yamabuki no se no naru nae ni amakumo kakeru kari ni aeru kamo
English Translation: In the autumn wind
the shallows of Yamabuki
sound, and as they do,
soaring through the clouds of heaven,
the wild geese I have met at last.
Meaning: As the shallows of Yamabuki roar in the autumn wind, I have come upon wild geese soaring among the clouds of the sky.
Commentary: Book Nine Miscellaneous Poems 1700

Headnote continued from the preceding poem: "Two poems composed at the Uji River"
As the shallows of Yamabuki sound in the autumn wind, the poet rejoices to meet geese flying high in the sky. River sound and the sight of geese merge, capturing autumn's arrival on a broad scale.
This is the second of two poems composed at the Uji River, and Yamabuki is thought to be a stretch of its shallows. Where the preceding poem infers the geese by sound, this one tells of actually meeting them, pairing hearing and seeing.
The author, Kakinomoto no Hitomaro, was a court poet active in the reigns of Jitō and Monmu. This poem is taken from the Hitomaro Collection, which is thought to contain both Hitomaro's own poems and poems by others that he gathered.

The first line, "in the autumn wind," is written in the original with characters meaning "metal wind," since the Five Phases theory assigns autumn to metal.
The second line, "the shallows of Yamabuki," names a stretch of the Uji River.
The third line, "sound, and as they do," uses nae ni, marking one event occurring together with another. Like "rings with echoing cries" in 1699, river sound is the starting point of the poem.
The fourth line, "soaring through the clouds of heaven," describes flight high among the clouds.
The final line, "the wild geese I have met at last," uses the attributive ru of the continuative ri with the exclamatory kamo, and runs to eight syllables.
Author: Kakinomoto no Hitomaro
Source: Manyoshu
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