Mishimasuge imada nae nari toki mataba kizu ya narinamu mishima sugakasa

三島菅いまだ苗なり時待たば
着ずやなりなむ三島菅笠

Roma-ji: Mishimasuge imada nae nari toki mataba kizu ya narinamu mishima sugakasa
English Translation: The Mishima sedge
is still only a seedling;
if I wait its time,
will I end up never wearing it,
the Mishima sedge hat?
Meaning: The sedge of Mishima is still only a seedling. If I wait for it to grow, will I end up never wearing it, the sedge hat of Mishima?
Commentary: Book Eleven Love Poems Ancient and Modern I 2836

Headnote continued from the preceding poem: "Metaphorical Poems"
The sedge of Mishima is still a seedling, and if the speaker waits until it has grown enough to be woven into a hat, he may never get to wear that hat at all. A young girl is likened to the seedling sedge, and the poem voices the worry that while he waits for her to grow up she will become another's and never be his wife.
By the left note "the four poems above express feelings through grasses," this is the second of four poems on grasses. The conceit of sewing sedge into a hat and wearing it as a figure for taking a wife also resonates with poem 2818, "Waiting for the day when I would sew the sedge of Saki Marsh into a hat and wear it, years have gone by." The next poem also sings of sedge, setting the feelings of one who waits for the sedge to grow beside those of the sedge that is cut and then left untended.
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, "mishimasuge": sedge growing at Mishima in Settsu Province, an area held to be around present-day Takatsuki and Ibaraki in Osaka Prefecture. It echoes the "mishima sugakasa" of the last line, framing the poem.
Second line, "imada nae nari": "is still a seedling." "Nari" is the assertive auxiliary, and the sense breaks off after the second line. The line stands for a girl still young.
Third line, "toki mataba": "if I wait for its time." "Mataba" is the irrealis form with "ba," stating a supposition.
Fourth line, "kizu ya narinamu": "will I end up not wearing it?" The particle "ya" is interrogative, and "namu," the irrealis "na" of the perfective "nu" plus the attributive form of the conjectural "mu," closes the kakari-musubi construction begun by "ya."
Fifth line, "mishima sugakasa": "the Mishima sedge hat." Ending on a noun, it repeats the "mishimasuge" of the first line to close the poem, setting vividly before us the thing desired.
Source: Manyoshu
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