Ashihiki no yama ka mo takaki makimuku no kishi no komatsu ni miyuki furikuru

あしひきの山かも高き巻向の
崖の小松にみ雪降りくる

Roma-ji: Ashihiki no yama ka mo takaki makimuku no kishi no komatsu ni miyuki furikuru
English Translation: On the rugged hills—
is the mountain high, perhaps?
At Makimuku
on the cliff's small pines, the snow
comes falling, drifting down.
Meaning: Is it because the mountains are so high? Snow comes falling on the little pines on the cliffs of Makimuku.
Commentary: Book Ten Winter Miscellaneous Poems 2313

Headnote continued from the preceding poem: "Winter Miscellaneous Poems"
Seeing snow falling on the small pines on the cliffs of Makimuku, this poem wonders whether it is because the mountains are high. Makimuku, sung as a place of rising haze in the Hitomaro Collection group of the spring miscellaneous poems, is sung in the winter miscellaneous poems as a place of falling snow, so the spring Makimuku at the head of the book and the winter Makimuku echo each other.
Kakinomoto no Hitomaro was a court poet of the Asuka period, active under Empress Jitō and Emperor Monmu. The left note records that this poem comes from the Kakinomoto no Hitomaro Collection, and it is uncertain whether it is Hitomaro's own work or a poem by someone else that he recorded.

The first line, "ashihiki no," is a pillow word attached to "mountain."
In the second line, "yama ka mo takaki," "ka mo" is an interrogative particle in kakari-musubi with the attributive "takaki": is it that the mountain is high? The poem breaks here.
The third line, "of Makimuku," names Makimuku in Yamato, also sung in 1813 and elsewhere in the spring poems.
The fourth line, "on the little pines of the cliff," names where the snow falls.
In the last line, "miyuki furikuru," "mi" is an honorific prefix: the snow comes falling.
Author: Kakinomoto no Hitomaro
Source: Manyoshu
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