Takayama ni takabe sawatari takadaka ni waga matsu kimi o machiidemu kamo

高山にたかべさ渡り高々に
我が待つ君を待ち出でむかも

Roma-ji: Takayama ni takabe sawatari takadaka ni waga matsu kimi o machiidemu kamo
English Translation: Over the high hills
the little teal wing their way;
high on tiptoe so
I wait for you, my beloved:
shall I see you come at last?
Meaning: As the teal wing high over the mountains, so I wait for you, stretching up on tiptoe; shall I, after all this waiting, see you come at last?
Commentary: Book Eleven Love Poems Ancient and Modern I 2804

Headnote continued from the preceding poem: "Expressing Feelings through Things"
As teal fly over the high mountains, so the speaker waits, stretching up on tiptoe, for a beloved who may at last arrive; this is a woman's poem of waiting for her lover's visit. Impatience mingles with uncertainty over whether he will truly come.
This is one of the sequence set upon birds, here the teal, a water bird that crosses over the mountains. The striking device of repeating the sound "taka" three times, in "takayama," "takabe," and "takadaka," conveys directly a heart straining upward in its waiting.
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, "takayama ni": "over the high mountain." It sets off the sound "taka" that repeats through the lines that follow.
Second line, "takabe sawatari": "the teal fly across." "Takabe" is the small duck now called the teal, and "sa" is a prefix that smooths the rhythm. The first two lines form a preface that leads, through repeated sound, into "takadaka ni."
Third line, "takadaka ni": a word for waiting eagerly, stretching up on tiptoe. It expresses the rising excitement of a heart that longs.
Fourth line, "waga matsu kimi o": "you for whom I wait." "Kimi" is a woman's word for a man, showing that this is a woman's poem.
Fifth line, "machiidemu kamo": "shall I, after waiting, see you come?" "Machiizu" means to greet at last the one awaited; the conjectural "mu" followed by the questioning final particle "kamo," tinged with feeling, expresses both hope and unease.
Source: Manyoshu
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