Mikazuki no saya ni mo miezu kumogakuri mimaku zo hoshiki utate kono koro

三日月のさやにも見えず雲隠り
見まくぞ欲しきうたてこのころ

Roma-ji: Mikazuki no saya ni mo miezu kumogakuri mimaku zo hoshiki utate kono koro
English Translation: As the crescent moon
shows itself not clearly at all,
hidden in the clouds,
how I long to see you now,
strangely so in these days
Meaning: As the crescent moon is hidden in the clouds and cannot be clearly seen, so I long to see the one I cannot clearly see; these days the longing has grown beyond all measure.
Commentary: Book Eleven Love Poems Ancient and Modern I 2464

Headnote continued from the preceding poem: "Expressing Feelings through Things"
As the crescent moon slips behind the clouds and cannot be clearly seen, the speaker longs to see a lover who seldom appears: a love poem of a yearning grown hard to restrain in these days. The frailty of the thin, pale crescent hidden by clouds is laid over the feeling for a lover almost, but never quite, seen.
This poem stands at the end of the series speaking through the moon. Poem 2461 of this book also uses the crescent moon as a preface, but where that poem tells of seeing the beloved, if only a little, this one laments not seeing, so that the same crescent forms a pair of seeing and not seeing. And where poem 2460, at the start of the series, wished that no cloud would trail across the moon, here the moon is hidden in cloud, reversing the relation of cloud and moon.
The author is unknown; according to the left note, the poem comes from the Kakinomoto no Hitomaro Collection. That collection is thought to contain both Hitomaro's own poems and poems by others that he recorded. Kakinomoto no Hitomaro was a court poet active in the reigns of Empress Jito and Emperor Monmu, and is counted among the Thirty-Six Immortal Poets.

First line, "mikazuki no": the thin moon of the third night of the lunar month. The first three lines form a preface, the crescent that cannot be clearly seen leading to the wish to see the beloved in the fourth line.
Second line, "saya ni mo miezu": "not seen clearly at all." "Saya ni" means clearly, with the binding particle "mo" added.
Third line, "kumogakuri": "hidden in the clouds." It uses the same word as the third line of the preceding poem, "kakurinaba," and the hiding of the moon feared there has here come true.
Fourth line, "mimaku zo hoshiki": "how I wish to see." "Mimaku" is the nominalized form of "mimu," and with the binding particle "zo" the adjective "hoshi" closes in its attributive form "hoshiki" (kakari-musubi); the poem pauses here.
Fifth line, "utate kono koro": "so strangely in these days." "Utate" describes a state advancing beyond the ordinary; set after the fourth line in inverted order, the line ends on the noun "kono koro" (taigen-dome).
Author: Kakinomoto no Hitomaro Collection
Source: Manyoshu
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