When well-bred men and women wept in Old Japan, they dried their eyes on their sleeves, so ‘wet sleeves’ is a common metaphor for grief. The poet is saying ‘I have sorrow enough for us both’.

A tricky one this, as it contains a dual meaning and an onomatopoeic element. tokiFa besides being a place name, could be analysed as toki Fa ‘time’, so the first line can be read as either: ‘Tokiwa, which I remember’ or ‘When I remember’. Karakurenawi which literally means ‘T’ang [Chinese] crimson’ is included in the poem solely because the combination of syllables sounded like a cuckoo’s call to Old Japanese ears.