Imo ga kami agetakaha no no hanaregoma arabi ni kerashi awanaku omoeba

妹が髪上げ竹葉野の放れ駒
荒びにけらし逢はなく思へば

Roma-ji: Imo ga kami agetakaha no no hanaregoma arabi ni kerashi awanaku omoeba
English Translation: Like the loose horse
on the plain of Takaha, named
for my love's raised hair,
you must have grown wild and strayed,
when I think we do not meet
Meaning: Like the horse set loose on the plain of Takaha, named as if for binding up my beloved's hair, you seem to have grown wild and drifted away from me, when I think how we no longer meet.
Commentary: Book Eleven Love Poems Ancient and Modern I 2652

Headnote continued from the preceding poem: "Expressing Feelings through Things"
Seeing that they no longer meet, the speaker fears that the lover's heart has grown wild and drifted away, like a horse set loose on the plain. Through the loose horse, the poem conveys the anxiety of thinking on a heart that has grown distant.
The first three lines are a preface leading to "arabi," and within it "imo ga kami age" leads to "Takaha" through "taku," to bind up hair, a preface within a preface. Set before the poems on the sound of horses that follow, it opens a group of poems on horses.
The author is unknown. The anonymous poems of Book Eleven gather the love poems of people whose names have not come down to us.

First line, "imo ga kami": "my beloved's hair." Together with "age" it suggests binding up hair, leading to "taka" in "Takaha."
Second line, "agetakaha no no": the line moves from "age taku," to bind up hair, into the place name Takaha-no, whose location is uncertain.
Third line, "hanaregoma": a horse let loose in the fields. These three lines form a preface leading to "arabi."
Fourth line, "arabi ni kerashi": "must have grown wild and estranged." "Kerashi" joins the past "keri" and the conjectural "rashi"; the poem breaks here, inverted with the last line.
Fifth line, "awanaku omoeba": "when I think that we do not meet." "Awanaku" is the nominalized negative, giving the ground for the conjecture of the fourth line.
Source: Manyoshu
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