This is a poem which relies upon a knowledge of old Japanese marriage customs to make its point: aristocratic society was polygamous, with women generally residing in their father’s houses and being visited by their husbands, who might have a number of wives. So, it is the man’s home which would normally ‘wander’, and the woman whose plight it was to wait. Here, though, the woman has been moving, or been being moved, and the man has to wait, wondering where his love has gone.