Ama no to o akegata no sora ni naku kari no tsubasa no tsuyu ni yadoru tsukikage

天の戸をあけがたの空に鳴く雁の
翼の露に宿る月影

Roma-ji: Ama no to o akegata no sora ni naku kari no tsubasa no tsuyu ni yadoru tsukikage
English Translation: Opening heaven's door,
in the dawning sky the geese
are crying as they pass—
on the dewdrops of their wings
the moonlight lodges there.
Meaning: In the sky of dawn, when heaven's door is opened, the geese cry as they fly—and in the dew upon their wings the moonlight lodges.
Commentary: Autumn Poems 228

Headnote continued from the preceding poem: "Geese before the moon"
In the sky at dawn, the light of the sinking moon lodges in the dew on the wings of geese crying as they fly. The fine conceit lies in seeing the moonlight even in a single drop of dew on the wing of a goose crossing the wide sky.
According to the source's note, the original lacked the no after akegata in line 2; this edition follows the source text and reads it with no.

Line 1, ama no to, is the door said to stand in heaven; the dawn is pictured as its opening.
Line 2: ake is a pivot word meaning both "opening" heaven's door and "dawn," and the line is hypermetric.
Line 3 refers to the geese crying as they cross the dawn sky.
Line 4 means "in the dew on their wings."
Line 5 ends on a noun, giving last the moonlight reflected in the dew. Whereas the preceding poem, 227, sang of the moon shining across the whole late-night sky, this one sings of the moon lodged in a single dewdrop on a wing, the same moonlight drawn on the scales of the vast sky and a tiny drop.
Author: Minamoto no Sanetomo
Source: Kinkaishu
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