Yueru himo tokamu hi tōmi shikitae no waga komakura wa koke mushi ni keri

結へる紐解かむ日遠み敷栲の
我が木枕は苔生しにけり

Roma-ji: Yueru himo tokamu hi tōmi shikitae no waga komakura wa koke mushi ni keri
English Translation: The cord that we tied,
the day to loose it is so far
that, with linen spread,
this wooden pillow of mine
has come to grow over with moss
Meaning: The day when we will untie the cords we tied is so far off that my wooden pillow has grown over with moss.
Commentary: Book Eleven Love Poems Ancient and Modern I 2630

Headnote continued from the preceding poem: "Expressing Feelings through Things"
Because the day of untying the cords they tied for each other and sleeping together is so far away, the speaker's wooden pillow has grown over with moss: a poem that voices the loneliness of long nights sleeping alone. The bold exaggeration of moss growing on a pillow left unused makes the length of the waiting vividly felt.
Like the preceding poem, it speaks through a pillow. Where the preceding poem asks the beloved to sleep with the pillow as a stand-in even if they cannot meet, this poem laments that time has passed with no shared bed until the pillow is mossy, treating the feelings of the one who waits from another angle through the same object.
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, "yueru himo": "the cord we tied," the cords of their robes tied for each other at parting, not to be loosened until they met again.
Second line, "tokamu hi tōmi": "since the day of untying is far." "Tōmi" adds the suffix "mi" to the stem of the adjective "tōshi" to express a reason: the day of meeting again and loosening the cords is still distant.
Third line, "shikitae no": a pillow word attached to "pillow." "Shikitae" is cloth spread on a bed, and the phrase attaches to words for bedding.
Fourth line, "waga komakura wa": "my wooden pillow," a pillow made of wood, singled out by the particle "wa."
Fifth line, "koke mushi ni keri": "has grown over with moss." The perfective auxiliary "nu" in its form "ni" is followed by the exclamatory "keri," filling the exaggeration of moss on an unused pillow with surprise and grief.
Source: Manyoshu
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