The journey itself is my home.
MATSUO BASHOThe journey itself is my home.
MATSUO BASHOYear by year, the monkey’s mask reveals the monkey.
MATSUO BASHOThe moon and sun are travelers through eternity. Even the years wander on. Whether drifting through life on a boat or climbing toward old age leading a horse, each day is a journey, and the journey itself is home.
MATSUO BASHONothing in the cry of cicadas suggests they are about to die.
MATSUO BASHOFarewell, my old fan. / Having scribbled on it, / What could I do but tear it / At the end of summer?
MATSUO BASHOFresh spring! / The world is only Nine days old – / These fields and mountains!
MATSUO BASHOAwakened at midnight by the sound of the water jar cracking from the ice.
MATSUO BASHOThe fact that Saigyo composed a poem that begins, “I shall be unhappy without loneliness,” shows that he made loneliness his master.
MATSUO BASHOAt the ancient pond the frog plunges into the sound of water.
MATSUO BASHOThis autumn- why am I growing old? bird disappearing among clouds.
MATSUO BASHOTraveler’s heart. Never settled long in one place. Like a portable fire.
MATSUO BASHOThe oak tree: not interested in cherry blossoms.
MATSUO BASHOWhy so scrawny, cat? Starving for fat fish or mice… Or backyard love?
MATSUO BASHOWhen 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 BASHOA weathered skeleton in windy fields of memory, piercing like a knife.
MATSUO BASHODon’t imitate me / we are not two halves / of a muskmelon.
MATSUO BASHO