Yūzukuyo sawabe ni tateru ashitazu no naku ne kanashiki fuyu wa kinikeri

夕月夜沢辺に立てるあしたづの
鳴く音悲しき冬は来にけり

Roma-ji: Yūzukuyo sawabe ni tateru ashitazu no naku ne kanashiki fuyu wa kinikeri
English Translation: Under evening moon
standing by the marshy shore,
the cranes of the reeds—
how sad their crying voices—
winter has come upon us.
Meaning: On a night of the evening moon, the cranes standing by the marsh cry out so sadly—winter has come.
Commentary: Winter Poems 314

Headnote continued from the preceding poem: "From among poems on early winter"
On a night with an early evening moon, the cranes standing by the marsh cry with a sad voice, and the poet knows that winter has come. He grasps winter's arrival not through the scene before his eyes but through the sorrow of a sound.
The Ruijū text places this poem among the "poems found in other manuscripts and printed editions" and gives line 5 as fuyu zo kinikeru. According to the source's note, the original manuscript also reads fuyu zo kinikeri, but this edition follows the source text.

Line 1, yūzukuyo, is the moon out in the evening, or such a night. Poems 351 and 353 of this section open with the same line.
Line 2: ru is the attributive of the continuative auxiliary ri, "standing by the marsh."
Line 3, ashitazu, is a poetic word for cranes found among the reeds.
Line 4 tells how sadly the cranes' cries sound.
Line 5 is the same as that of the two preceding poems, the third in the sequence on winter's coming.
Author: Minamoto no Sanetomo
Source: Kinkaishu
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