Akikaze no chie no urami no kotsumi nasu kokoro wa yorinu nochi wa shiranedo

秋風の千江の浦廻の木屑なす
心は寄りぬ後は知らねど

Roma-ji: Akikaze no chie no urami no kotsumi nasu kokoro wa yorinu nochi wa shiranedo
English Translation: Like the floating chips
that the autumn wind blows in
to Chie's curving bay,
my heart has drifted to you,
though I know not what will come
Meaning: Like the bits of driftwood swept by the autumn wind into the curving shore of Chie Bay, my heart has drifted to you, though I cannot know what comes after.
Commentary: Book Eleven Love Poems Ancient and Modern I 2724

Headnote continued from the preceding poem: "Expressing Feelings through Things"
Like the bits of wood swept by the autumn wind onto the shore, the speaker's heart has drifted wholly toward the beloved, though what will come of it cannot be known. The poem joins a helpless leaning of the heart with anxiety about the future.
Among the poems expressing feelings through things, a run of poems built on seaside scenes, especially bays and waves, begins here. This one speaks through driftwood that floats among the waves and comes to shore. "Yukue shirazute" in the preceding poem and "nochi wa shiranedo" here both speak of the unseen future of love, and so the two correspond.
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, "akikaze no": "where the autumn wind blows," modifying the following "Chie no urami." The original script writes "cold wind" and reads it as "akikaze."
Second line, "chie no urami no": "of the curving shore of Chie Bay." Where Chie Bay lay is not certain.
Third line, "kotsumi nasu": "like bits of driftwood." The lines up to here form a preface, leading through the image of wood blown ashore to the word "yoru," "to draw near."
Fourth line, "kokoro wa yorinu": "my heart has drawn near." "Nu" is a perfective auxiliary, and the poem breaks after this line.
Fifth line, "nochi wa shiranedo": "though I do not know what comes after." "Nedo" joins the realis form of the negative "zu" to the concessive "do"; inverted with the fourth line, it adds the lingering unease of one who has given the heart.
Source: Manyoshu
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