Amakumo ni kari zo nakunaru Takamato no hagi no shitaba wa momichi aemu kamo

天雲に雁ぞ鳴くなる高円の
萩の下葉はもみちあへむかも

Roma-ji: Amakumo ni kari zo nakunaru Takamato no hagi no shitaba wa momichi aemu kamo
English Translation: Among heaven's clouds
the wild geese, I hear, cry out;
at Takamato
the lower leaves of bush clover,
have they colored to the full?
Meaning: Up among the clouds I hear the wild geese crying. Have the lower leaves of the bush clover at Takamato colored fully by now?
Commentary: Book Twenty Miscellaneous Poems 4296

Headnote continued from the preceding poem: "On the twelfth day of the eighth month of Tenpyō Shōhō 5, two or three officials each carried a jar of wine, climbed onto the plain of Takamato, and composed poems expressing a little of their feelings; three poems."
Hearing wild geese in the sky, the poet wonders whether the lower leaves of the bush clover at Takamato have fully colored. At the outing on the Takamato plain, he pairs the arrival of the geese with the reddening of bush clover to sing the turn of the season. The idea that the cry of geese hastens the coloring of plants appears often in the Man'yōshū, and the poem draws on it.
The author, Nakatomi no Kiyomaro, was a son of Nakatomi no Omimaro. He later received the surname Ōnakatomi and rose to Minister of the Right. At this time he was Middle Controller of the Left.

The first line, "amakumo ni," means "among the clouds of heaven," telling us the geese's cry comes from on high.
The second line, "kari zo nakunaru," uses the emphatic particle zo, resolved by the attributive form naru. Naru is an auxiliary of inference from sound: "I hear them crying." The poem pauses here.
The third line, "Takamato no," repeats the place name that opens the preceding poem, carrying over the setting of the set.
The fourth line, "hagi no shitaba wa," refers to the lower leaves of bush clover, which were thought to color first.
The closing line, "momichi aemu kamo," uses the auxiliary verb au, "to do completely," and ends with mu and kamo in wondering conjecture: "have they colored through by now?"
Author: Nakatomi no Kiyomaro
Source: Manyoshu
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