Japanese → English Poetry

Haiku

Matsuo Bashō

Translated by Patrick Coleman
February 13, 2023

An old pond and there
a frog is jumping into
the sound of water

Summer grasses and
batallions of soldiers are
but the scars of dreams

I left my thatched hut
and moved back into the world!
It's now home to dolls

The sound of rainfall
It falls upon my ears and
the pickled ume

Spider, how do you
sound and what is it you cry
into the fall wind?

Loneliness and the
rocks even are soaked through by
the cicadas' chirps

Drinking morning tea
the monks grow silent among
the chrysanthemums

At Mt. Fuji and
fleas are on the tea grinder
completely covered

Sick on my travels
over dead meadows, my dreams
gallop, circling

At daybreak and the
fog sends things whirling about
a bell is sounding