black
grey
blue
red
brown
white

The sea darkens And a wild duck s call Is faintly white.

Matsuo Basho

A thicket of summer grass / Is all that remains / Of the dreams of ancient warriors.
MATSUO BASHO

Dreams Summer Warrior
Felling a tree and gazing at the cut end – tonight’s moon.
MATSUO BASHO

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

Butterfly Change Mindset Place
Year’s end, all corners of this floating world, swept.
MATSUO BASHO

Age Float Time World
From all these trees, in the salads, the soup, everywhere, cherry blossoms fall.
MATSUO BASHO

Fall Food Tree
The fact that Saigyo composed a poem that begins, “I shall be unhappy without loneliness,” shows that he made loneliness his master.
MATSUO BASHO

Beginning Lonely Master Myself Poem
Farewell, my old fan. / Having scribbled on it, / What could I do but tear it / At the end of summer?
MATSUO BASHO

End Fan Myself Old Summer
Spring rain leaking through the roof dripping from the wasps’ nest.
MATSUO BASHO

Home Insect Rain Spring
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
Plunge Deep enough in order to see something that is hidden and glimmering.
MATSUO BASHO

Enough Hide Order See
Old dark sleepy pool… Quick unexpected frog Goes plop! Watersplash!
MATSUO BASHO

Dark Expectation Old Sleep Water
Friends part forever wild geese lost in cloud.
MATSUO BASHO

Cloud Forever Friendship Lost Wild
At the ancient pond the frog plunges into the sound of water.
MATSUO BASHO

Pond Sound Water
I am one who eats breakfast gazing at morning glories.
MATSUO BASHO

Eat Fast Glory Morning Myself
Awakened at midnight by the sound of the water jar cracking from the ice.
MATSUO BASHO

Awake Ice Night Sound Water
The sea darkens And a wild duck s call Is faintly white.
MATSUO BASHO

Animal Call Darkness Sea White Wild

The sea darkens And a wild duck s call Is faintly white.

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The sea darkens And a wild duck s call Is faintly white.

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