Tatamikomo hedate amu kazu kayowasaba michi no shibakusa oizu aramashi o

畳薦へだて編む数通はさば
道の芝草生ひずあらましを

Roma-ji: Tatamikomo hedate amu kazu kayowasaba michi no shibakusa oizu aramashi o
English Translation: As many times as
the stitches in a rush mat,
had you come to me,
the weeds upon the pathway
would never have grown so thick
Meaning: Had you come to me as many times as there are stitches in a woven rush mat, no grass would have grown upon the path.
Commentary: Book Eleven Love Poems Ancient and Modern I 2777

Headnote continued from the preceding poem: "Expressing Feelings through Things"
Had you come to me as often as there are stitches in a woven rush mat, no grass would have grown on the path: so a woman reproaches a man whose visits have ceased. Through the plain fact that grass has grown on the road, she indirectly blames him for staying away.
It is a poem on rushes, using the fine handwork of weaving a rush mat as a figure for the number of visits. Where the preceding poem showed a man trampling roadside grass as he waited, this one shows a path where grass has grown because no one comes, so the two set the one who waits against the one who stays away through the grass of the road.
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, "tatamikomo": rushes woven into a floor mat, here a pillow word attaching to "hedate amu." As befits its category, the poem places a familiar handicraft at its head.
Second line, "hedate amu kazu": "the number of stitches woven one by one, each set apart." It expresses a great number and stands for repeated visits.
Third line, "kayowasaba": "if you had come to me." "Kayowasu" is "kayou" with the honorific "su," and "ba" after the irrealis form marks a supposition, answering "mashi" in the last line in a counterfactual.
Fourth line, "michi no shibakusa": "the grass on the path," showing that grass has grown because no one has passed that way.
Fifth line, "oizu aramashi o": "it would not have grown." "Mashi" is the counterfactual auxiliary and "o" an exclamatory particle of concession, ending with reproach for the one who no longer comes.
Source: Manyoshu
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