Tachite omoi ite mo zo omou kurenai no akamo susobiki inishi sugata o

立ちて思ひ居てもぞ思ふ紅の
赤裳裾引き去にし姿を

Roma-ji: Tachite omoi ite mo zo omou kurenai no akamo susobiki inishi sugata o
English Translation: Standing, I long for her,
and sitting, too, I long for her,
in crimson colors
the hem of her red skirt trailing,
the figure as she went away
Meaning: Standing I think of her, and sitting too I think of her: the figure she made as she went away, trailing the hem of her crimson-red skirt.
Commentary: Book Eleven Love Poems Ancient and Modern I 2550

Headnote continued from the preceding poem: "Expressing One's Feelings Directly"
Standing or sitting, the speaker cannot stop thinking of the beloved who went away trailing the hem of her crimson-red skirt. The poem paints in vivid color a man's heart in which the bright red skirt glimpsed at parting is burned into his memory.
The first half states the speaker's unceasing longing, and the second half, through inversion, presents the woman's retreating figure as the object of that longing. The red skirt is often sung in the Man'yoshu as attire symbolizing the beauty of young women, and here too it sets off the figure of the departing woman.
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, "tachite omoi": "standing, I long," paired with "ite mo" in the second line to express longing at every moment. The first line has six syllables, one more than the norm.
Second line, "ite mo zo omou": "sitting, too, I long." The particle "zo" is answered by the attributive form "omou," a kakari-musubi construction, and the poem breaks here after the second line.
Third line, "kurenai no": the color dyed from safflower, showing the brilliance of the red skirt that follows.
Fourth line, "akamo susobiki": "trailing the hem of her red skirt." The mo was a garment worn by women from the waist down, and the line pictures an elegant figure with a long trailing hem.
Fifth line, "inishi sugata o": "the figure that went away." It is the object of "omou" in the second line, and the inversion leaves the beloved's retreating figure lingering.
Source: Manyoshu
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