Aratama no kie ga takegaki amime yu mo imo shi mie naba are koime yamo

あらたまの寸戸が竹垣網目ゆも
妹し見えなば我れ恋ひめやも

Roma-ji: Aratama no kie ga takegaki amime yu mo imo shi mie naba are koime yamo
English Translation: Through the woven gaps
in the bamboo fence of Kie,
fresh-unpolished gem,
could I but glimpse my beloved,
would I yearn for her like this?
Meaning: If only I could see my beloved even through the gaps in the woven bamboo fence of Kie, would I yearn for her so? I would not.
Commentary: Book Eleven Love Poems Ancient and Modern I 2530

Headnote continued from the preceding poem: "Expressing One's Feelings Directly"
If he could glimpse his wife even through the small gaps in a woven bamboo fence, he would not yearn like this: so a man sings of the pain of not meeting. By voicing so modest a wish, to see her even through the weave, he heightens the anguish of a present in which he cannot see her at all.
Poem 2534 in this book also uses the pillow word "aratama no," but there it attaches, as usual, to "year," whereas here it attaches to the place name Kie. It is notable that two different uses of the same pillow word are set close together.
The author is unknown. The anonymous poems of Book Eleven gather love poems by people whose names have not come down to us.

First line, "aratama no": a pillow word, here attached to the place name Kie. One theory holds that Kie is the place in Totomi Province sung of as "Kie of Aratama" in poem 3353 of Book Fourteen.
Second line, "kie ga takegaki": "the bamboo fence of Kie," a fence of woven bamboo enclosing the beloved's house.
Third line, "amime yu mo": "even through the woven gaps." "Yu" marks the place passed through, and "mo" adds the sense of "if only from there."
Fourth line, "imo shi mie naba": "if my beloved could be seen." "Shi" is an emphatic particle, and "naba" is the conditional formed from the perfective auxiliary "nu" and "ba."
Fifth line, "are koime yamo": "would I yearn so? I would not." "Meyamo" combines a form of the conjectural "mu" with the rhetorical "yamo," and the rhetorical question powerfully expresses the grief of not meeting.
Source: Manyoshu
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