Kusamakura hito wa tare to ka iiokishi tsui no sumika wa noyama to zo miru - Shui Wakashu(English Translation & Meaning)

草枕人は誰とか言ひ置きし
つひの住処は野山とぞ見る

Roma-ji: Kusamakura hito wa tare to ka iiokishi tsui no sumika wa noyama to zo miru
English Translation: Pillowed on the grass,
who was it, I wonder, people
meant by those words?
As the dwelling at the last,
the fields and hills are what I see.
Meaning: Whom did people mean when they spoke of a pillow of grass? I see that the final dwelling of us all is the fields and hills.
Commentary: Book Twenty Lament Poems 1326

Headnote: "Composed when speaking of the fleeting nature of the world"
The poet asks whom people meant by a pillow of grass, for he sees that the final dwelling is the fields and hills. The headnote shows it was composed when people spoke together of the fleetingness of the world. "Kusamakura," pillowed on grass, means sleeping on a journey, yet it is not only travelers but everyone who will in the end be buried in the fields and hills with grass for a pillow, and so he sings of impermanence, that all life is a lodging on a journey. It follows the preceding poem, 1325, on the dead laid in the grass.
The author, written as "Shitagō," is Minamoto no Shitagō. Of the Saga Genji line, he took part in compiling the Gosenshū and in reading the Man'yōshū as one of the Five Men of the Pear Chamber, and wrote the Wamyō Ruijushō. He is counted among the Thirty-Six Immortal Poets.

First line, "kusamakura," means "a pillow of grass," the makeshift sleep of a journey, from tying grass into a pillow.
Second line, "hito wa tare to ka," means "whom did people mean," with the binding particle "ka" resolved by the attributive "shi" in the third line.
Third line, "iiokishi," means "did they leave those words," and the poem breaks after this third line.
Fourth line, "tsui no sumika wa," means "the final dwelling," the place where one is buried after death.
Final line, "noyama to zo miru," means "is the fields and hills, I see," with the binding particle "zo" resolved by the attributive "miru." It ties the "pillow of grass" of the first line to the grass of the fields and hills where one is buried.
Author: Minamoto no Shitagō
Source: Shui Wakashu
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