Furiwake no kami o mijikami aokusa o kami ni takuramu imo o shi zo omou

振分けの髪を短み青草を
髪にたくらむ妹をしぞ思ふ

Roma-ji: Furiwake no kami o mijikami aokusa o kami ni takuramu imo o shi zo omou
English Translation: Since her parted locks
are still far too short to bind,
with green grasses she
must be binding up her hair:
the girl I hold in my heart
Meaning: Her parted hair still too short, she must be binding green grass into it to put it up: it is that girl I long for.
Commentary: Book Eleven Love Poems Ancient and Modern I 2540

Headnote continued from the preceding poem: "Expressing One's Feelings Directly"
Because her parted hair is still too short to put up, she is probably binding green grass into it: so a man thinks fondly of a young girl. Picturing a girl, still childlike, striving to wear her hair like a grown woman, he cherishes her touching eagerness.
Binding up the hair is also sung of in poem 123 of Book Two, "if bound it slips, if not bound it is long, my beloved's hair," suggesting that a girl's growing up and binding her hair marked the season of love and marriage.
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, "furiwake no": "of parted hair." Parted hair, divided to left and right and hanging at the shoulders, was a child's hairstyle.
Second line, "kami o mijikami": "because her hair is short." The construction "o ... mi" expresses a cause or reason.
Third line, "aokusa o": "green grass," sung of as something added to the short hair.
Fourth line, "kami ni takuramu": "she must be binding it into her hair." "Taku" means to gather the hair and put it up, and "ramu" is the auxiliary of present conjecture, imagining something not before one's eyes.
Fifth line, "imo o shi zo omou": "that girl I long for." "Shi" and "zo" are both emphatic, and the attributive "omou" resolves the "zo."
Source: Manyoshu
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