Harukusa o umakuiyama yu koekunaru kari no tsukai wa yadori sugu nari

春草を馬咋山ゆ越え来なる
雁の使は宿り過ぐなり

Roma-ji: Harukusa o umakuiyama yu koekunaru kari no tsukai wa yadori sugu nari
English Translation: Where horses graze spring grass,
over Mount Umakui
they come crossing, it seems—
the wild geese, those messengers,
pass my lodging by, I hear.
Meaning: The wild geese, carriers of letters, seem to come over Mount Umakui, the mountain whose name speaks of horses grazing spring grass—but I hear them pass my lodging by.
Commentary: Book Nine Miscellaneous Poems 1708

Headnote: "A poem composed on the banks of the Izumi River"
Hearing geese come over Mount Umakui, the traveler laments that these messengers, said to carry letters, seem to pass his lodging by. Drawing on the tale of geese as letter-bearers, it speaks of the loneliness of receiving no word from home.
The Izumi River is the Kizu River in southern Kyoto, and Mount Umakui is thought to be a nearby peak. "The geese as messengers" derives from the story of Su Wu of Han, who is said to have sent word by tying a letter to a goose's leg.
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, "where horses graze spring grass," leads to the name Umakui, "horse-grazing."
The second line, "over Mount Umakui," uses yu to mark passage.
The third line, "they come crossing, it seems," uses naru, the attributive of nari, an inference from sound.
The fourth line, "the wild geese, those messengers," refers to geese as bearers of letters. Following "the messenger from home" in 1697 and "a messenger" in 1698, messengers appear once more.
The final line, "pass my lodging by, I hear," uses nari again. With naru in the third line and nari in the fifth, the geese's movements are inferred from their cries.
Author: Kakinomoto no Hitomaro
Source: Manyoshu
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