Hyakunin Isshu, Poem 2
haru sugitenatsu kinikerashishirotae nokoromo hosutefuama no kaguyama
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Spring has gone away, andsummer come, it seems, for I hear they are drying robes of white mulberry clothon Heavenly Mount Kagu!
[Grave of Empress Jito and Emperor Tenmu
in the Asuka area (Kashihara)]
A poem expressing the freshness of early summer. 
Shirotae means white robes made from the fibers of the paper mulberry, typically thin and airy clothes for summer. These have presumably been laid out to bleach against the green of Mt Kagu. Shirotae is also a pillow word (makurakotoba) for things that are very white, such as koromo, "garments." Many commentators take this however as a metaphor:- for rising mists, meaning that the mountain now can be clearly seen;- or on the contrary, for mists covering the mountain;- or for nanohana, white deutzia flowers covering the hillside.
[Mt. Kagu seen from the south]
"Heavenly" Mt Kagu is one of the "Three Mountains of Yamato" ("Yamato Sanzan," with Mt Unebi and Mt Miminashi). All three are in fact low hills - Mt Kagu is only 152 meters high - but as they rise directly out of the plain, they were important landmarks. All three hills figure prominently in the poetry of the time. They were also pivots of cosmic forces, for on the day of the winter solstice the sun would set right over Mt Unebi, and rise that same day over Mt Kagu, thereby symbolically linking these mo...