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Every moment of life is the last, every poem is a death poem.

Matsuo Basho

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

Cry Death Flower
Calm and serene The sound of a cicada Penetrates the rock.
MATSUO BASHO

Calm Rock Serene Sound
The universe and its beings are a complementarity of empty infinity, intimate interrelationships, and total uniqueness of each and every being.
MATSUO BASHO

Empty Intimate Relationship Unique Universe
Go to the object. Leave your subjective preoccupation with yourself. Do not impose yourself on the object. Become one with the object. Plunge deep enough into the object to see something like a hidden glimmering there.
MATSUO BASHO

Deep Enough Gide Leaving Object Subject Yourself
Learn the rules, and then forget them.
MATSUO BASHO

Forget Inspirational Learning Rule
Come, see the true flowers of this pained world.
MATSUO BASHO

Flower Pain See True World
A weathered skeleton in windy fields of memory, piercing like a knife.
MATSUO BASHO

Memories Skeleton
Winter garden, the moon thinned to a thread, insects singing.
MATSUO BASHO

Insect Old Pond Sing Winter
Why so scrawny, cat? Starving for fat fish or mice… Or backyard love?
MATSUO BASHO

Cat Love Starve
The journey itself is my home.
MATSUO BASHO

Home Journey Myself
The haiku that reveals seventy to eighty percent of its subject is good. Those that reveal fifty to sixty percent, we never tire of.
MATSUO BASHO

Goodness Hide Mystery Poem Reveal
Don’t imitate me / we are not two halves / of a muskmelon.
MATSUO BASHO

Fruit Imitation Myself
Poverty’s child – he starts to grind the rice, and gazes at the moon.
MATSUO BASHO

Children Moon Poverty Start
There is nothing you can see that is not a flower; there is nothing you can think that is not the moon.
MATSUO BASHO

Flower Moon Nature See Thinking Yourself
All my friends / viewing the moon – / an ugly bunch.
MATSUO BASHO

Friendship Moon Ugly View
From all these trees, in the salads, the soup, everywhere, cherry blossoms fall.
MATSUO BASHO

Fall Food Tree

Every moment of life is the last, every poem is a death poem.

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Every moment of life is the last, every poem is a death poem.

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