Tsukikusa no kareru inochi ni aru hito o ika ni shirite ka nochi mo awamu to iu

月草の借れる命にある人を
いかに知りてか後も逢はむと言ふ

Roma-ji: Tsukikusa no kareru inochi ni aru hito o ika ni shirite ka nochi mo awamu to iu
English Translation: Like a dayflower,
ours is but a borrowed life,
we who live as men:
how can you know what will come,
saying we will meet later
Meaning: We are mortals whose lives are only borrowed, as fleeting as the dayflower. How can you know the future, that you say we will meet again later?
Commentary: Book Eleven Love Poems Ancient and Modern I 2756

Headnote continued from the preceding poem: "Expressing Feelings through Things"
This is a woman's love poem reproaching her lover: we humans live lives as fleeting as the dayflower, merely borrowed, so how can you know what lies ahead and say "we will meet later"? She protests against his putting off their meeting by invoking the frailty of life.
It is a poem "Expressing Feelings through Things" that speaks through the dayflower, and like the preceding poem it is voiced by a woman. Whereas the preceding poem resolves to wait for her lover's words, this one cannot trust his promise to meet later and turns it back on him, showing a contrasting attitude toward a lover's words.
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, "tsukikusa no": a pillow word attached to "kareru inochi." Tsukikusa is the old name for the dayflower, whose blossom opens in the morning and soon withers and whose color fades easily, making it a figure for transience.
Second line, "kareru inochi ni": "in a life that is borrowed," expressing the sense of impermanence that human life is only lent for a time.
Third line, "aru hito o": "though we are mortals living so." "O" is an adversative particle that carries the thought "though our lives are fleeting" into the lines that follow.
Fourth line, "ika ni shirite ka": "how can you know?" The particle "ka" marks a question and forms a kakari-musubi construction with "iu" in the last line.
Fifth line, "nochi mo awamu to iu": "do you say we will meet later?" It closes in the attributive form "iu" in answer to "ka" in the fourth line. With eight syllables it is hypermetric, quoting the lover's words back to press him.
Source: Manyoshu
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