Basho

 

Whenever winds blow

the butterfly finds a new place

on the willow tree

 

A Dutchman arrives

to view cherry blossoms

from his saddle

 

A lovely spring night

suddenly vanished while we

viewed cherry blossoms

 

Nothing in the cry

of cicadas suggests they

are about to die

 

With no umbrella

in cold, early winter rain--

ah, well! So be it! 

Being useless,

my daydreams are disturbed

by noisy warblers

 

-Matsuo Bashō (tr. Sam Hamill)

 

Bashō (1644-1694) was a Japanese poet and travel writer, famous in his own day. (Write me a poem, Matsuo Bashō, and he frequently did.) I recently finished this collection--very good! A mix of poems and travel writing. I was a bit surprised how his travels felt quite like a modern tourist, off to see temple complexes or areas of great natural beauty. Of course the one time I got to see something in Japan, I went and saw a temple complex.

 

These are just a random few of the haiku in the volume, ones that appealed to me. You'll notice that in Hamill's translation they're not particularly rigorous about the 5-7-5 syllable system, but the introduction suggests that Bashō himself wasn't particularly rigorous either. They do show the typical haiku structure: an observation of a natural setting with a turn in the third line.