black
grey
blue
red
brown
white

Learn how to listen as things speak for themselves.

Matsuo Basho

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
With every gust of wind, the butterfly changes its place on the willow.
MATSUO BASHO

Butterfly Change Mindset Place
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
Between our two lives there is also the life of the cherry blossom.
MATSUO BASHO

Live Nature Ourselves Tree
I felt quite at home, / As if it were mine sleeping lazily / In this house of fresh air.
MATSUO BASHO

Air Home Quite Sleep
How much I desire! Inside my little satchel, the moon, and flowers.
MATSUO BASHO

Desire Flower Moon Myself
Plunge Deep enough in order to see something that is hidden and glimmering.
MATSUO BASHO

Enough Hide Order See
Poverty’s child – he starts to grind the rice, and gazes at the moon.
MATSUO BASHO

Children Moon Poverty Start
I am one who eats breakfast gazing at morning glories.
MATSUO BASHO

Eat Fast Glory Morning Myself
April’s air stirs in Willow-leaves, a butterfly Floats and balances.
MATSUO BASHO

Balance Butterfly Leaves
On a bare branch a crow is perched – autumn evening.
MATSUO BASHO

Autumn Evening
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
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
First snow-falling-on the half-finished bridge.
MATSUO BASHO

Bridge Fall Snow
For this lovely bowl let us arrange these flowers since there is no rice.
MATSUO BASHO

Flower Food Love Poverty Togetherness
Spring rain conveyed under the trees in drops.
MATSUO BASHO

Drop Spring Tree

Learn how to listen as things speak for themselves.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

Learn how to listen as things speak for themselves.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

More Matsuo Basho Quotes