Yūke tou waga sode ni oku shiratsuyu o kimi ni misemu to toreba ke ni tsutsu

夕占問ふ我が袖に置く白露を
君に見せむと取れば消につつ

Roma-ji: Yūke tou waga sode ni oku shiratsuyu o kimi ni misemu to toreba ke ni tsutsu
English Translation: Asking the evening
omens, upon my sleeve settles
the white dew; to show
you, my love, I take it up,
and each time it fades away
Meaning: As I stand asking the evening omens, white dew settles on my sleeve; I try to take it up to show you, but each time it vanishes.
Commentary: Book Eleven Love Poems Ancient and Modern I 2686

Headnote continued from the preceding poem: "Expressing Feelings through Things"
A woman standing at a crossroads at dusk to divine the course of her love tries to take up the white dew on her sleeve to show her lover, but it vanishes every time. She wants to show that she stood long enough to be soaked with dew, yet the proof will not stay in her hand; in this frustration lies the pain of one who waits.
From this poem a run of poems on dew continues for a while. After the sequence on rain come poems on dew, another thing that falls from the sky, and the conceit of dew settling on the sleeve of a waiting woman carries on into the poems that follow.
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, "yūke tou": "asking the evening omens." Yūke was a custom of standing at a crossroads at dusk and divining one's fortune from the words of passersby; here it asks whether the lover will come.
Second line, "waga sode ni oku": "settling on my sleeve," modifying the white dew that follows; it suggests she has stood outside for a long time.
Third line, "shiratsuyu o": "the white dew," glistening white. With "o" it becomes the object of showing and taking.
Fourth line, "kimi ni misemu to": "to show you." The volitional "mu" expresses her wish to show her lover the proof of her waiting.
Fifth line, "toreba ke ni tsutsu": "when I take it, it keeps vanishing." "Ke" is the continuative of the verb "ku," to vanish, and the poem breaks off with the repetitive "tsutsu," leaving a lingering resonance.
Source: Manyoshu
Prev Poem: Imo ga kado yukisugi kanetsu hisakata no ame mo furanu ka so o yoshi ni semu
Next Poem: Sakurao no ō no shitakusa tsuyu shi areba akashite iyuke haha wa shiru tomo