Omoiideyo yūbe no kumo mo tanabikaba kore ya nageki ni taenu keburi to - Senzai Wakashu(English Translation & Meaning)

思ひ出でよ夕べの雲もたなびかば
これやなげきに絶えぬ煙と

Roma-ji: Omoiideyo yūbe no kumo mo tanabikaba kore ya nageki ni taenu keburi to
English Translation: Remember me then:
if the clouds of evening trail
long across the sky,
think, "Is this the smoke of one
whose life gave out in grief?"
Meaning: Remember me: if the evening clouds trail across the sky, think, "Is this not the smoke of one whose life gave out in grief?"
Commentary: Book Fifteen Love Poems V 922

Headnote: "Topic unknown"
Remember, he says, if the evening clouds should trail across the sky, that this is the smoke of one whose life gave out in grief. Overlaying the evening clouds with the smoke of his own cremation after dying of love's grief, he calls on his beloved to remember him when she sees those clouds. It is a poem of a poignant wish to remain in the beloved's heart even after death.
The author, "Middle Captain of the Right Palace Guards Tadayoshi," is Fujiwara no Tadayoshi. The son of Regent Fujiwara no Motozane, he served as Middle Captain of the Right Palace Guards and later rose to Major Counselor.
From this poem to 924 come poems on dying for love and on the soul that leaves the body to wander.

First line, "omoiideyo": a line with an extra syllable. "Omoiide" is the imperative of "omoiizu," "to remember," "remember me." The poem pauses here.
Second line, "yūbe no kumo mo": "the clouds of the evening sky too." Behind it lies the idea that the smoke of cremation rises to become trailing clouds.
Third line, "tanabikaba": "tanabiku" means clouds or haze trailing long and low, and the irrealis with "ba" gives a hypothetical condition, "if they should trail."
Fourth line, "kore ya nageki ni": "ya" is an interrogative binding particle whose conclusion is omitted. "Nageki" pivots between "nageki," "grief," and "nageki," "firewood," a related word to "keburi," "smoke," in the last line.
Fifth line, "taenu keburi to": "tae" means a life coming to an end and "nu" is the perfective, "the smoke of me, whose life gave out in grief." With "to," the line turns back by inversion to "omoiideyo" in the first line.
Author: Fujiwara no Tadayoshi
Source: Senzai Wakashu
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