HAIKU BY Matsuo Bashō

 

At the ancient pond
a frog plunges into
the sound of water

          Bashō – tr. Sam Hamill – The Sound of Water (Shambhala, 2000)

 

 

Nothing in the cry
of cicadas suggests they
are about to die

          Bashō – tr. Sam Hamill – The Sound of Water (Shambhala, 2000)

 

 

How reluctantly
the bee emerges from deep
within the peony

          Bashō – tr. Sam Hamill – The Sound of Water (Shambhala, 2000)

 

 

Wrapping dumplings in
bamboo leaves, with one finger
she tides her hair

          Bashō – tr. Sam Hamill – The Sound of Water (Shambhala, 2000)

 

 

Awakened at midnight
by the sound of the water jar
cracking from the ice

          Bashō – tr. Sam Hamill – The Sound of Water (Shambhala, 2000)

 

 

On a withered branch
a crow has settled—
autumn nightfall.

          Bashō – tr. Harold G. Henderson – An Introduction to Haiku (Doubleday, 1958)

 

 

Did it yell
till it became all voice?
Cicada-shell!

          Bashō – tr. Harold G. Henderson – An Introduction to Haiku (Doubleday, 1958)

 

 

The usually hateful crow:
he, too—this morning,
on the snow!

          Bashō – tr. Harold G. Henderson – An Introduction to Haiku (Doubleday, 1958)

 

 

Won’t you come and see
loneliness? Just one leaf
from the kiri tree.

          Bashō – tr. Harold G. Henderson – An Introduction to Haiku (Doubleday, 1958)

 

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