This strange flower
investigated by butterflies and birds:
the autumn sky
—Matsuo Basho
Where’s the moon tonight?
Like the temple bell:
lost at sea.
—Matsuo Basho
Spring departs;
birds wail;
the pale eyes of fish moisten.
—Matsuo Basho
The moon still appears,
though far from home:
summer vagrant.
—Matsuo Basho
Cooling the pitiless sun’s
bright red flames:
autumn wind.
—Matsuo Basho
Saying farewell to others
while being told farewell:
departing autumn.
—Matsuo Basho
Traveling this road alone:
autumn evening.
—Matsuo Basho
Thin from its journey
and not yet recovered:
late harvest moon.
—Matsuo Basho
Occasional clouds
bless tired eyes with rest
from moon-viewing.
—Matsuo Basho
The moon having set,
all that remains
are the four corners of his desk.
—Matsuo Basho
The moon so bright
a wandering monk carries it
lightly on his shoulder.
—Matsuo Basho
What am I doing,
writing haiku on the threshold of death?
Hush, a bird’s song!
—Matsuo Basho
Fallen ill on a final tour,
in dreams I go roving
earth’s flowerless moor.
—Matsuo Basho,
Today, catching sight of the mallards
crying over Lake Iware:
Must I too vanish into the clouds?
—Prince Otsu
This world—
to what may we compare it?
To autumn fields
lying darkening at dusk
illuminated by lightning flashes.
—Minamoto no Shitago
Like a half-exposed rotten log
my life, which never flowered,
ends barren.
—Minamoto Yorimasa
Overtaken by darkness,
I will lodge under a tree’s branches;
cherry blossoms will cushion me tonight.
—Taira no Tadanori
Let me die in spring
beneath the cherry blossoms
while the moon is full.
—Saigyo
Both victor and vanquished are dewdrops
in which flashes of light
briefly illuminate the void.
—Ôuchi Yoshitaka
Even a life of long prosperity is like a single cup of sake;
my life of forty-nine years flashed by like a dream.
Nor do I know what life is, nor death.
All the years combined were but a fleeting dream.
Now I step beyond both Heaven and Hell
To stand alone in the moonlit dawn,
Free from the mists of attachment.
—Uesugi Kenshin
My life appeared like dew
and disappears like dew.
All Naniwa was a series of dreams.
—Toyotomi Hideyoshi
Felt deeply in my heart:
How beautiful the snow,
Clouds gathering in the west.
—Issho
Inhale, exhale.
Forward, reverse.
Live, die.
Let arrows fly, meet midway and sever the void in aimless flight:
Thus I return to the Source.
—Gesshu Soko
My body?
Pointless
as the tree’s last persimmon.
—Seisa
Farewell! I pass
away as all things do:
dew drying on grass.
—Banzan
A tempestuous sea ...
Flung from the deck —
this block of ice.
—Choha
Let us arise and go,
following the path of the clear dew.
—Fojo
Depths of the cold,
unfathomable ocean’s roar.
—Kasenjo
