Kakitsuhata sakinu no suge o kasa ni nui kimu hi o matsu ni toshi zo henikeru

かきつはた佐紀沼の菅を笠に縫ひ
着む日を待つに年ぞ経にける

Roma-ji: Kakitsuhata sakinu no suge o kasa ni nui kimu hi o matsu ni toshi zo henikeru
English Translation: Where iris blooms, from
the sedge of Saki Marsh
I sewed a sedge hat;
waiting for the day to wear it,
the years have passed me by
Meaning: I sewed a hat from the sedge of Saki Marsh, where the irises bloom, and while I waited for the day I would wear it, the years have gone by.
Commentary: Book Eleven Love Poems Ancient and Modern I 2818

Headnote continued from the preceding poem: "Questions and Answers"
Having sewn a hat from the sedge of Saki Marsh, the speaker waited for the day to wear it, only for the years to slip by. Sewing the hat is understood as an image for pledging oneself to someone, and the day of wearing it for the day of being united, so the poem uses the sedge hat to lament that, though vows were exchanged, the day of living together has not come and the years have passed.
This is a question-and-answer poem, paired with the next by the left note "the two poems above." The next poem speaks of a sedge hat of Naniwa, left unused to grow old, which no one else would wear, taking up this poem's lament of waiting for the day to wear the hat from the side of the hat that is left to age. Both poems form a question and answer with the metaphorical conceit of a hat standing for a person.
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, "kakitsuhata": because the iris blooms, "saki," it is a pillow word attached to the place name Saki, which shares the sound.
Second line, "sakinu no suge o": "the sedge of Saki Marsh." Saki Marsh lay at Saki in the province of Yamato, around present-day Sakicho in northern Nara City, and sedge is a grass used to weave hats and straw raincoats.
Third line, "kasa ni nui": "sewing it into a hat." Making the sedge into a hat is overlaid with pledging oneself to another.
Fourth line, "kimu hi o matsu ni": "while waiting for the day to wear it." "Mu" is the attributive form of the conjectural auxiliary, expressing a day still to come. The day of wearing the hat stands for the day of union with the one pledged.
Fifth line, "toshi zo henikeru": "the years have passed." The particle "zo" is answered by "keru," the attributive form of the past auxiliary "keri," a kakari-musubi construction filled with lament for the years spent waiting.
Source: Manyoshu
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