Aga mote no wasuremo shida wa Tsukubane o furisakemitsutsu imo wa shinuwane

我が面の忘れもしだは筑波嶺を
振り放け見つつ妹は偲はね

Roma-ji: Aga mote no wasuremo shida wa Tsukubane o furisakemitsutsu imo wa shinuwane
English Translation: When my face, my love,
begins to fade from your mind,
to Tsukuba's peak
lift your gaze and look on it,
and so remember me
Meaning: When you begin to forget my face, my wife, look up at the peak of Tsukuba and remember me.
Commentary: Book Twenty Frontier Guard Poems 4367

Headnote continued from the preceding poem: "Poems of the frontier guards sent in rotation to the provinces of Tsukushi in the second month of Tenpyō Shōhō 7, year of the wood sheep."
When you begin to forget my face, look up at Tsukuba's peak and remember me: the poem entrusts the mountain of home to his wife as a keepsake. It is the fifth poem from Hitachi. He asks his wife to take Mount Tsukuba, symbol of their home, as the means of recalling her husband. Mote for omote, shida for "time," and shinuwane for shinowane are eastern words.
The author, Urabe no Otatsu, was a guard from Ubaraki District in Hitachi; nothing more is known of him.

The first line, "aga mote no," "my face," refers to the husband's face in his wife's memory.
The second line, "wasuremo shida wa," "at the time you are forgetting," uses shida, an eastern word for "time."
The third line, "Tsukubane o," names the famous mountain of Hitachi, the symbol of home. Tsukuba recurs in later poems.
The fourth line, "furisakemitsutsu," means "lifting your gaze to look far off."
The closing line, "imo wa shinuwane," with ne, a request: please remember me.
Author: Urabe no Otatsu
Source: Manyoshu
Prev Poem: Hitachi sashi yukamu kari mo ga aga koi o shirushite tsukete imo ni shirasemu
Next Poem: Kujigawa wa sakeku arimate shiobune ni makaji shiji nuki wa wa kaerikomu