Tsuki kiyomi aki no yo itaku fukenikeri saho no kawara ni chidori shiba naku

月清み秋の夜いたく更けにけり
佐保の川原に千鳥しば鳴く

Roma-ji: Tsuki kiyomi aki no yo itaku fukenikeri saho no kawara ni chidori shiba naku
English Translation: The moon's so clear
that the autumn night has grown
so very late—
on the riverbanks of Saho
plovers cry and cry again.
Meaning: The moon is so clear that the autumn night has grown very late, and on the riverbanks of Saho the plovers keep on crying.
Commentary: Autumn Poems 270

Headnote: "As a poem on the moon"
Because the moon shines so clear, the autumn night has grown very late while the poet gazes, and on the riverbanks of Saho the plovers cry again and again. In a broad, Man'yō-like cadence, he portrays the clear scene of a moonlit riverbank.
The Ruijū text gives the headnote as "An autumn poem." Kamo no Mabuchi marked it with a circle. The poem shares the mood of a Man'yōshū poem in which, as the black night deepens, plovers cry again and again on the clear riverbank where the hisagi trees grow. In the source text consulted, a character at the start of line 3 is missing, and it has been read as fukenikeri from the syllable count and the flow of the words.

Line 1, tsuki kiyomi, means "since the moon is clear," with mi on an adjective stem giving the reason. Line 3 of the next poem, 271, is the same.
Line 2 means "the autumn night, greatly."
Line 3: keri expresses realization, and the poem pauses here. It shares nearly the same words with "the autumn night has grown so late" in the next poem, so the two poems set the late moonlit night side by side.
Line 4 names the same Saho riverbanks as 181; on the banks where the first wind of autumn blew at the start of the section, plovers now cry.
Line 5: shiba means "again and again."
Author: Minamoto no Sanetomo
Source: Kinkaishu
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