Waga seko ni a ga koi oreba waga yado no kusa sae omoi uraburenikeri

我が背子に我が恋ひ居れば我が宿の
草さへ思ひうらぶれにけり

Roma-ji: Waga seko ni a ga koi oreba waga yado no kusa sae omoi uraburenikeri
English Translation: While for you, my love,
I go on in longing so,
even the grasses
in the garden of my house
have grown wilted with their grief
Meaning: While I go on longing for you, my love, even the grass at my house has fallen into brooding and wilted away.
Commentary: Book Eleven Love Poems Ancient and Modern I 2465

Headnote continued from the preceding poem: "Expressing Feelings through Things"
As she goes on longing for her beloved, even the grass in the garden of her house sinks into brooding and wilts: a lament of love spoken from a woman's point of view. By seeing the wilted grass as something sharing her sorrow, the poem shows everything around her steeped in the grief of love.
Following the series speaking through the moon, a series speaking through grasses begins with this poem. Repeating "waga" (my) three times, it turns to the speaker's own surroundings and entrusts her heart to the grass there. Poem 2469 of this book also has the word "urabure," and the two are akin in expressing a heart sunk in love through plants.
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, "waga seko ni": "for my dear one." "Seko" is a word women use fondly for a husband or lover, showing that this is a woman's poem.
Second line, "a ga koi oreba": "as I go on longing." The realis with "ba" forms a definite condition, the continuing longing being the cause of what follows.
Third line, "waga yado no": "of my house." Repeating "waga" for the third time since the first line, it gathers the feeling close around the speaker.
Fourth line, "kusa sae omoi": "even the grass brooding." The particle "sae" adds one thing to another, not only I but even the grass, treating the grass as if it were a person.
Fifth line, "uraburenikeri": "it has wilted away." "Uraburu" means for the heart to droop and sink in sorrow, overlaying the wilting of the grass with the drooping of the heart. The perfective "nu" and the exclamatory "keri" close the poem with surprised realization.
Author: Kakinomoto no Hitomaro Collection
Source: Manyoshu
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