Awanaku ni yūke o tou to nusa ni oku ni waga koromode wa mata zo tsugubeki

逢はなくに夕占を問ふと幣に置くに
我が衣手はまたぞ継ぐべき

Roma-ji: Awanaku ni yūke o tou to nusa ni oku ni waga koromode wa mata zo tsugubeki
English Translation: We do not meet, and so,
to ask the evening omens,
I leave as offering
the sleeves of this robe of mine:
must I once again piece them on?
Meaning: Because we cannot meet, I keep making offerings to ask the evening omens, so must I once again sew new pieces onto the sleeves of my robe?
Commentary: Book Eleven Love Poems Ancient and Modern I 2625

Headnote continued from the preceding poem: "Expressing Feelings through Things"
Unable to meet the beloved, the speaker keeps offering the sleeves of a robe to the gods when consulting the evening omens, and so must piece the sleeves out once again. The poem conveys the ache of a love that cannot help turning to divination time after time, voicing it with a touch of wry humor through the concrete image of sleeves growing ever shorter.
The headnote "Expressing Feelings through Things" names a category of poems that convey love through everyday objects. This poem speaks through the sleeves of a robe; with the deep-dyed crimson robe of the preceding poem and the old robe of the next poem, love poems tied to clothing run on in sequence here. Yūke, the evening omen, was read by standing at a crossroads at dusk and listening to the words of passersby, a custom often mentioned in the love poems of the Man'yoshu.
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, "awanaku ni": "though we do not meet." "Naku ni" is the nominalized form of the negative auxiliary "zu" followed by "ni," here giving the failure to meet as the reason for what follows.
Second line, "yūke o tou to": "to ask the evening omens," that is, to inquire through divination whether the beloved will come.
Third line, "nusa ni oku ni": "since I lay them as offerings," understood to mean cutting off one's own sleeves and setting them out as an offering to the gods.
Fourth line, "waga koromode wa": "the sleeves of my robe." The particle "wa" singles out the sleeves grown short through use as offerings.
Fifth line, "mata zo tsugubeki": "must I once again piece them on?" The particle "zo" is answered by "beki," the attributive form of "beshi," in a kakari-musubi construction, closing the poem on the repeated divinations with a rueful smile.
Source: Manyoshu
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