Kaku bakari koitsutsu arazu wa asa ni ke ni imo ga fumuramu tsuchi ni aramashi o

かくばかり恋ひつつあらずは朝に日に
妹が踏むらむ地にあらましを

Roma-ji: Kaku bakari koitsutsu arazu wa asa ni ke ni imo ga fumuramu tsuchi ni aramashi o
English Translation: Rather than go on
longing for her as I do,
morning after day
I would be the very earth
that my beloved treads upon
Meaning: Rather than go on longing like this, I wish I were the earth my beloved must tread on morning after morning, day after day.
Commentary: Book Eleven Love Poems Ancient and Modern I 2693

Headnote continued from the preceding poem: "Expressing Feelings through Things"
Rather than suffer so in love, I would sooner become the earth my beloved treads each day: so a man wishes. The poem shows a love so desperate that he would become a thing rather than a person, if only he could be near her.
In the preceding poem a woman feared that a man's footprints would reveal their affair; this poem takes up the word "tread" and wishes to become the earth that is trodden. Within the category "Expressing Feelings through Things," it is placed as a poem on earth. The idea, in the pattern "rather than..., I would...," of wishing to become a thing rather than endure painful love is often found in the Man'yoshu.
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, "kaku bakari": "to this extent," pointing to the sheer weight of the pain of love being felt now.
Second line, "koitsutsu arazu wa": "rather than keep on longing." "Zu wa," the negative "zu" plus "wa," means "rather than doing," and it answers to "mashi" in the last line.
Third line, "asa ni ke ni": "morning and day," that is, every single day, picturing the beloved treading the earth day after day.
Fourth line, "imo ga fumuramu": "that my love must be treading." "Ramu" conjectures about the present, imagining the daily life of the absent beloved.
Fifth line, "tsuchi ni aramashi o": "I wish I were the earth." "Mashi" is the counterfactual auxiliary, answering "zu wa" in the second line, and "o" closes with a sigh.
Source: Manyoshu
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