Omoiidete tou koto no ha o tare mimashi mi no shirakumo to narinamashikaba - Gosen Wakashu(English Translation & Meaning)

思ひ出でてとふ言の葉を誰見まし
身の白雲となりなましかば

Roma-ji: Omoiidete tou koto no ha o tare mimashi mi no shirakumo to narinamashikaba
English Translation: Recalling me at last,
your words of kind inquiry—
who would have read them
had I already become
a drifting cloud of white
Meaning: Who would have read these words of inquiry, sent when at last you remembered me, if I had already become a white cloud in the sky?
Commentary: Book Sixteen Miscellaneous Poems II 1151

Headnote: "When a man was ill, the woman had not inquired after him for a long time, and only did so as he was recovering."
The poet asks who would have read the words of inquiry, sent when she at last remembered him, had he become a white cloud. To a woman who did not visit while he was ill and only wrote as he recovered, he answers with irony that, had he died, no one would have read them.
According to the headnote, the woman did not inquire after the man in his illness and only did so as it was easing, and the man composed this.
The poet is listed as anonymous, and the composer's name has not come down to us.

The first line, "Omoiidete," means "remembering," with an extra syllable. It carries the irony of "so you finally remembered."
The second line, "tou koto no ha o," means "the words that inquire after me."
The third line, "tare mimashi," means "who would have seen them," with "mashi" the auxiliary of counterfactual supposition. The poem pauses here.
The fourth line, "mi no shirakumo to," means "my body as a white cloud," recalling the smoke of cremation turning to cloud and signifying death.
The last line, "narinamashikaba," means "had I become," forming the counterfactual "mashikaba ... mashi" and inverted with the third line.
Author: Unknown Poet
Source: Gosen Wakashu
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