Katayori ni ito o zo waga yoru waga seko ga hanatachibana o nukamu to omoite

片縒りに糸をぞ我が縒る我が背子が
花橘を貫かむと思ひて

Roma-ji: Katayori ni ito o zo waga yoru waga seko ga hanatachibana o nukamu to omoite
English Translation: Twisting single-strand,
I am spinning out this thread,
for my dearest one's
blossoms of the orange tree—
thinking I will string them through.
Meaning: I am twisting a single-strand thread, thinking to string upon it the tachibana blossoms of my beloved's home.
Commentary: Book Ten Summer Love Poems 1987

Headnote: "Love Expressed Through Flowers"
This poem depicts a woman twisting a single-strand thread to string the tachibana blossoms of her beloved's home. Its headnote is "Love Expressed Through Flowers." "Katayori," single-strand twisting, is thought also to echo one-sided love, and the wish to thread the flowers of his home on her own thread carries the wish to be joined with him. The custom of stringing tachibana blossoms as beads, sung in 1967 and elsewhere in the summer miscellaneous poems, becomes a figure for love.

The first line, "katayori ni," twisting in one direction only, echoes one-sided love.
In the second line, "ito o zo waga yoru," "zo" is an emphatic particle in kakari-musubi with the attributive "yoru." The poem breaks here.
The third line, "waga seko ga," uses a woman's word for her beloved.
The fourth line, "the flowering tachibana," names the blossoms of his home.
In the last line, "nukamu to omoite," "mu" expresses intention; by inversion the purpose of twisting the thread is given at the end.
Source: Manyoshu
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