How harsh it sounds!
The spattering of the hail
On my traveling hat
How very cool it feels
Taking a noonday nap, to have
A wall against my heels!
I fell a tree
And gaze at the cut end--
The moon of tonight
On a withered branch
A crow has settled--
Autumn nightfall
This road:
With no man traveling on it,
Autumn darkness falls
The road here--
No traveler comes along
This autumn evening
Against the brushwood gate
Dead tea leaves swirl
In the stormy wind.
Should I hold it in my hand
It would melt in my burning tears -
Autumnal frost.
Another year is gone -
A travel hat on my head,
Straw sandals on my feet.
Year after year
On the monkey's face
A monkey's mask.
Myriads of things past
Are brought to my mind -
These cherry blossoms!
The sound of hail -
I am the same as before
Like that aging oak.
A banana plant in the autumn gale -
I listen to the dripping of rain
Into a basin at night.
This autumn
Why am I aging so?
Flying towards the clouds, a bird.
On a journey, ailing -
My dreams roam about
Over a withered moor.
The rough sea -
Extending toward Sado Isle,
The Milky Way.
Mountain path-
sun rising
through plum scent
Has it returned,
the snow
we viewed together?
Bushes by the roadway.
When you look closer,
blossoming flowers!
Skylark sings all
day, and day
not long enough.
Violets -
how precious on
a mountain path.
Bright moon: I
stroll around the pond -
hey, dawn has come.
I feel longing for rains
that is just falling in the sea
I devote myself in inn.
Sick on a journey:
Over parched fields
Dreams wander on.
Fallen sick on a journey,
In dreams I run wildly
Over a withered moor.
An old pond!
A frog jumps in-
The sound of water.
The first soft snow!
Enough to bend the leaves
Of the jonquil low.
In the cicada's cry
No sign can foretell
How soon it must die.
No one travels
Along this way but I,
This autumn evening.
In all the rains of May
there is one thing not hidden -
the bridge at Seta Bay.
The years first day
thoughts and loneliness;
the autumn dusk is here.
Clouds appear
and bring to men a chance to rest
from looking at the moon.
Harvest moon:
around the pond I wander
and the night is gone.
Poverty's child -
he starts to grind the rice,
and gazes at the moon.
No blossoms and no moon,
and he is drinking sake
all alone!
Won't you come and see
loneliness? Just one leaf
from the kiri tree.
Temple bells die out.
The fragrant blossoms remain.
A perfect evening!
Sleep on horseback,
The far moon in a continuing dream,
Steam of roasting tea.
How quiet the sound
of the shrill cicada,
After it penetrates the rock.
Spring departs.
Birds cry
Fishes' eyes are filled with tears.
Summer zashiki
Make move and enter
The mountain and the garden.
What luck!
The southern valley
Make snow fragrant.
A autumn wind
More white
Than the rocks in the rocky mountain.
From all directions
Winds bring petals of cherry
Into the grebe lake.
Even a wild boar
With all other things
Blew in this storm.
The crescent lights
The misty ground.
Buckwheat flowers.
Bush clover in blossom waves
Without spilling
A drop of dew.
On high narrow road
old traveler clears wide swath,
tiny scythe glinting.
Waterjar cracks:
I lie awake
This icy night.
Lightening:
Heron's cry
Stabs the darkness
An octopus lies
In a pot idly musing,
Summer moon above.
It is very quiet now
I feel like chirring of cicadas are
Deeply ingrained into the rocks
The temple bell stops --
but the sound keeps coming
out of the flowers.
Such stillness --
The cries of the cicadas
Sink into the rocks.
The passing spring
Birds mourn,
Fishes weep
With tearful eyes.
It is with awe
That I beheld
Fresh leaves, green leaves,
Bright in the sun.
Even the woodpeckers
Have left it untouched,
This tiny cottage
In a summer grove.
Waking in the night;
the lamp is low,
the oil freezing.
It has rained enough
to turn the stubble on the field
black.
Winter rain
falls on the cow-shed;
a cock crows.
The leeks
newly washed white,-
how cold it is!
The sea darkens;
the voices of the wild ducks
are faintly white.
Ill on a journey;
my dreams wander
over a withered moor.
Summer grasses
all that remains
of soldiers dreams.
It is deep autumn
My neighbor
How does he live, I wonder.
Neither to Evening Nor to morning does it belong: The melon blossom
Autumn wind -- a graveyard in Ise even more lonely
Old pond!
A frog jumps in:
water's sound.
With a bit of madness in me
Which is poetry
I plod along like Chikusai
Among the wails of the wind...
In a way
It was fun
Not to see Mount Fuji
In foggy rain...
With a hat on my head
And straw sandals on my feet,
I met on the road
The end of the year...
A single leaf -
Just a single leaf has fallen,
And was swept away breathless
By a gust of wild wind...
Under the bright moon
I walked round and round
The lake -
All night long...
When the sun sets under the edge of the hill and night falls, I quietly sit and wait for the moon. With the moonrise I begin roaming about, casting my shadow on the ground. When the night deepens, I return to the hut and meditate on right and wrong, gazing at the dim margin of a shadow in the lamplight..
I feel lonely as I gaze at the moon, I feel lonely as I think about myself, and I feel lonely as I ponder upon this wretched life of mine. I want to cry out that I am lonely, but no one asks me how I feel.
In my view a good poem is one in which the form of the verse, and the joining of its two parts, seem light as a shallow river flowing over its sandy bed
Their verse has only seventeen syllables: not a single word should be carelessly used...
in old age leading a tired horse into the years, every day is a journey, and the journey itself is home
Rikiu
I look beyond;/Flowers are not,/Nor tinted leaves./On the sea beach/
A solitary cottage stands/In the waning light/Of an autumn eve.
Kobori-Enshiu
A cluster of summer trees,/A bit of the sea,/A pale evening moon."