Status Updates From The Thirty-Six Immortal Wom...

In exile, Nakatomi no Yakamori wrote to his wife

Without fail
Because I fall asleep
Longing for you
Every seed-black night
You come to me in my dreams.

Many layers of meaning conveyed in very little space!

If I forget, oh,
How I will have to weep
When evening comes!
That months have passed
While I alone knew

This is inverted grammar in which a woman commencing an affair writes about it in terms of its possible ending, expressing fears that she is so accustomed to keeping her love a secret that she may fail to express her feelings to the man and be left.

oku = deep, interior
implies invisible mystery, spiritual power

Michitsuna no haha also wrote a literary biography (Kagero nikki, 954-974). So when you read a poem like this

Have we come to the end?
If you appeared, even in reflection,
That is what I would ask.
But on the pool of remembrance
How the water-weed has grown!

You can look it up and see that that it was written in response to a specific incident.

musubohere can mean either "to tie a knot" or "to be depressed".

I lie alone and
As long as I stay awake
In my forlorn state
There is no way to avoid
Admiring this lovely moon.
--anon. from Gosen wakashu

(in the 10th century some people believed it was unhealthy to look at the moon)