FERN HAIKU
by Matsuo Basho
Tongue fern
in summer
one leaf.
IMAGE: “Hart’s Tongue Fern” by Colin Varndell. Prints available at fineartamerica.com. Visit the photographer at colinvarndell.co.uk.
Archives for posts with tag: Basho
SUMMER HAIKU
by Matsuo Basho
The summer world
floats in the lake
waves wash over
IMAGE: “Reflections” by Christopher and Amanda Elwell. Prints available at fineartamerica.com.
FROG HAIKU
by Matsuo Basho
Translated by Nobuyuki Yuasa
Breaking the silence
Of an ancient pond,
A frog jumped into water —
A deep resonance
ART: “Frog,” watercolor by Frits Ahlefeldt.
BASHO’S FROG HAIKU
translated into a limerick by Alfred H. Marks
There once was a curious frog
Who sat by a pond on a log
And, to see what resulted,
In the pond catapulted
With a water-noise heard round the bog.
IMAGE: “Basho’s frog haiku print” available at zazzle.com.
FRIGHTENING THINGS
by David Mura
After wandering years
Basho returned
to gaze at his umbilical cord
pickled in a jar. Plopped
in brine years ago
like the frog in the pond
in his famous haiku.
Of course
fame meant nothing
to him. He stood
in the blazing rain
in his family graveyard
and as a crow squawked overhead
the stones proclaimed him
the last of his line. He
kept feeling inside his
straw raincoat for a missing
limb or the hole where
the wind and rain
flew in. I’ll get drunk
tonight, he thought,
and his eyelashes glistened
as he trudged back
to his hermit’s hut
to gaze again at the jar.
SOURCE: “Frightening Things” appears in David Mura‘s collection The Last Incantations: Poems (TriQuarterly Books, 2014), available at Amazon.com.
ART: “Portrait of Matsuo Basho” by Katsushika Hokusai
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: David Mura is a writer, memoirist, poet, and performance artist whose work has won critical praise and numerous awards. He gives presentations at educational institutions, businesses and other organizations throughout the country. His books include The Last Incantations: Poems (Triquarterly Books, 2014), Turning Japanese (1991), Where the Body Meets Memory (1996), After We Lost Our Way (1989), The Colors of Desire (1995), Angels for the Burning (2004), and Song for Uncle Tom, Tonto & Mr. Moto (2002). Visit the author at davidmura.com.
Thirty-six seconds of lovely pictures and music. Enjoy!
AUTUMN HAIKU
by Matsuo Basho
a strange flower
for birds and butterfly
the autumn sky.
A PLUM TREE
by Matsuo Basho
Crow’s
abandoned nest,
a plum tree.
Photo: JanThePic, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
THE OAK TREE
by Matsuo Basho
The oak tree:
not interested
in cherry blossoms.
Photo: Ian Parry, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
Silver Birch Press 