Iwa no imoro wa o shinufurashi mayusui ni yusuishi himo no tokuraku moeba

家の妹ろ我を偲ふらし真結ひに
結ひし紐の解くらく思へば

Roma-ji: Iwa no imoro wa o shinufurashi mayusui ni yusuishi himo no tokuraku moeba
English Translation: My wife there at home
must be longing after me,
for the sash we tied
with a true and steadfast knot
has come loose all on its own
Meaning: My wife at home must be longing for me, for the sash we tied with a firm knot has come undone by itself.
Commentary: Book Twenty Frontier Guard Poems 4427

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."
My wife at home must be longing for me, for the sash we knotted firmly has come undone: the poem reads his wife's love in a loosened sash. The left note says it is the third of the eight guard poems of former years that Iware no Morokimi copied and sent to Yakamochi. Drawing on the folk belief that a tied sash comes loose when the other person thinks of you, he confirms the heart of his distant wife. Iwa for ie and yusui for yui are dialect forms.
The author's name has not come down. It is thought to be by a guard himself.

The first line, "iwa no imoro," "my wife at home," with the suffix ro, is hypermetric.
The second line, "wa o shinufurashi," uses rashi, inference from evidence, the loosened sash in the lower half being the evidence. The poem pauses here.
The third line, "mayusui ni," "with a firm knot," refers to the sash tied at parting.
The fourth line, "yusuishi himo no," means "the sash we tied."
The closing line, "tokuraku moeba," "when I think it has come loose," gives by inversion the ground of his inference.
Source: Manyoshu
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