Yamazato no shiba oriori ni tatsu keburi hito mare nari to sora ni shiru kana - Senzai Wakashu(English Translation & Meaning)

山里の柴をりをりに立つ煙
人まれなりと空に知るかな

Roma-ji: Yamazato no shiba oriori ni tatsu keburi hito mare nari to sora ni shiru kana
English Translation: In the mountain village
brushwood smoke rises only
now and then,
and by the sky I come to know
how seldom people are there
Meaning: The smoke of brushwood broken and burned rises only now and then in the mountain village, and from the sky I know how few the people are.
Commentary: Book Seventeen Miscellaneous Poems II 1092

Headnote: "Composed on the theme of a mountain dwelling when I presented a hundred-poem sequence in the reign of Emperor Horikawa"
This poem was composed on the theme "mountain dwelling" when she presented a hundred-poem sequence in the reign of Emperor Horikawa. Seeing the smoke of brushwood rise now and then in the mountain village, I know by the sky how few the people are, she says. The smoke of brushwood burned in a mountain village rises only now and then. From how seldom it appears, she can tell just by looking at the sky how few people live there, depicting the loneliness of the mountain village through a distant view. The sequence is known as the Horikawa Hundred.
The author, "Higo of the Nijō Grand Empress Dowager," was a lady in the service of the Nijō Grand Empress Dowager, Princess Reishi, and a daughter of Fujiwara no Sadanari.
It shares "tatsu keburi" with the preceding poem, 1091, both singing of smoke rising from a mountain hut. Where the preceding poem wonders where the smoke will go, this one reads in the scarcity of smoke a mountain village where people are few.

First line, "yamazato no": "in the mountain village." It is the same first line as 1103 and 1104 of this book.
Second line, "shiba oriori ni": "oriori" is a pivot word joining "ori," breaking brushwood to burn, with "oriori," now and then, meaning the smoke of broken brushwood rises from time to time.
Third line, "tatsu keburi": "the rising smoke." It is the same phrase as "tatsu keburi mo ya" in the fourth line of the preceding poem, 1091.
Fourth line, "hito mare nari to": "that people are few."
Fifth line, "sora ni shiru kana": "I know it by the smoke in the sky," with "kana" an exclamatory final particle.
Author: Nijō Taikōtaigōgū no Higo
Source: Senzai Wakashu
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