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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

The basis of art is change in the universe.
MATSUO BASHO

Art Change One Liner Universe
Awakened at midnight by the sound of the water jar cracking from the ice.
MATSUO BASHO

Awake Ice Night Sound Water
The desire to break the silence with constant human noise is, I believe, precisely an avoidance of the sacred terror of that divine encounter.
MATSUO BASHO

Avoid Believe Break Desire Divine Human Myself Noise Silence Sound
Clapping my hands with the echoes the summer moon begins to dawn.
MATSUO BASHO

Beginning Dawn Hands Moon Summer
Every day is a journey, and the journey itself is home.
MATSUO BASHO

Day Destination Home Journey
April’s air stirs in Willow-leaves, a butterfly Floats and balances.
MATSUO BASHO

Balance Butterfly Leaves
Not to think of yourself / as someone who did not count — / Festival of the Souls.
MATSUO BASHO

Count Festival Soul Thinking
There came a day when the clouds drifting along with the wind aroused a wanderlust in me, and I set off on a journey to roam along the seashores
MATSUO BASHO

Day Journey Myself Sea Wind
Old dark sleepy pool… Quick unexpected frog Goes plop! Watersplash!
MATSUO BASHO

Dark Expectation Old Sleep Water
Summer grasses — all that remains of great soldiers’ imperial dreams.
MATSUO BASHO

Dreams Greatness Summer
Year’s end, all corners of this floating world, swept.
MATSUO BASHO

Age Float Time World
Spring rain conveyed under the trees in drops.
MATSUO BASHO

Drop Spring Tree
When composing a verse let there not be a hair’s breath separating your mind from what you write; composition of a poem must be done in an instant, like a woodcutter felling a huge tree or a swordsman leaping at a dangerous enemy.
MATSUO BASHO

Breathe Compose Dangerous Enemy Fall Hairs Mindset Tree Writing
Without bitterest cold that penetrates to the very bone, how can plum blossoms send forth their fragrance all over the world?
MATSUO BASHO

Bone Cold Deep Fragrance Nature Perfume World
Every moment of life is the last, every poem is a death poem.
MATSUO BASHO

Death Life Moments Poem
How I long to see among dawn flowers, the face of God.
MATSUO BASHO

Face Flower God Myself See

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

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

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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