Snow must now have thawed,
High up in Tachi-Yama.
For, down in the gorge,
Crossing Haetsuki-Gawa,
Got my horse stirrups all wet...
(Vol.17-4024)

In the year 746, Ootomo-no Yakamochi was appointed Governor of Etchuu Province (now Toyama Pref.). Yakamochi actively engaged himself in the Province for 5 years during his 30’s, presiding over banquets and poetic gatherings, commemorating the arrivals of missions from the Capital, farewell parties for himself and/or his subordinates on duty trips up to the Capital, et al. He also went around the Province on local trips, and created various poems about the nature, landscapes and life of the local people, which looked fresh and different from those of the Capital to his eyes.

He created poems and made them public in those parties and gatherings (which had been a long custom in the ruling class), but also started to create and sing poems on his own, and not in public, but kept records of them, as a new form of poem-writing. The subjects of the poems thus created, however, still centered upon public and seasonal events and happenings, most of the time. The style of the songwriting this way was called “Solo Song-writing”, or “Douk-Ei （独詠）”, and per haps similar to the style taken by modern-time poets and songwriters, except for the public nature of subjects.   （per Mr. Ogawa）

“Tachi-Yama”, sung in this poem, is still there of course in Toyama Pref., as “Tate-Yama Range”, a breathtakingly beautiful range of mountains.  “Haetsuki-Gawa” is today called “Hayatsuki Gawa” River, written as “早月川”.
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