Tamazusa no hashigaki ka to mo miyuru kana tobiokuretsutsu kaeru karigane

玉章の端書きかとも見ゆるかな
飛び遅れつつ帰る雁がね

Roma-ji: Tamazusa no hashigaki ka to mo miyuru kana tobiokuretsutsu kaeru karigane
English Translation: Like a postscript line
on the margin of a letter,
so it seems to me:
lagging, flying on behind,
a wild goose on its way home.
Meaning: Like the lines written in the margin of a letter, so it looks to me: a wild goose flying home, falling behind the rest.
Commentary: Spring Poems 48

Headnote: "Returning wild geese"
The topic is returning wild geese. Likening the line of geese across the sky to writing, the poet sees a goose lagging behind the formation as a postscript added in the margin of a letter.
Geese were said to carry letters, and their formations were compared to written characters. On that tradition the poet builds a fresh conceit, seeing a straggler as a postscript, and the wit shines through. In contrast to the geese vanishing into haze in the preceding two poems, here the geese stand out clearly against the sky.

First line, “tamazusa no”: of a letter, drawing on the tradition that geese carried letters.
Second line, “hashigaki ka to mo”: as if it were a note added in the margin.
Third line, “miyuru kana”: so it appears, with the exclamatory kana and a break after the third line.
Fourth line, “tobiokuretsutsu”: flying along behind the formation.
Fifth line, “kaeru karigane”: the poem closes on a noun, the lagging goose returning home; the upper and lower halves are inverted.
Author: Saigyō
Source: Sankashu
Prev Poem: Karigane wa kaeru michi ni ya mayouran Koshi no Nakayama kasumi hedatete
Next Poem: Yamazato e tare o mata ko wa yobukodori hitori nomi koso suman to omou ni