A Cloud In The Wind: Writings Of Matsuo Basho

This is a page dedicated to the great poet and writer Matsuo Basho and is updated from time to time. The titles in italics + parentheses are not from the original works but something I’ve added to make things easier for people scanning this page.

(A cloud in the wind.)

I am like a sick man weary of society. There was a time I wanted an official post, land of my own, another time I would have liked to live in a monastery. Yet I wandered on, a cloud in the wind, wanting only to capture the beauty of the flowers and birds.
~

Violets —
how precious on
a mountain path.
~

(Travelers.)

Days and months are travellers of eternity. So are the years that pass by. Those who steer a boat across the sea, or drive a horse over the earth till they succumb to the weight of years, spend every minute of their lives travelling. There are a great number of ancients, too, who died on the road. I myself have been tempted a long time by the cloud-moving wind — filled with a strong desire to wander.
~

Summer grasses,
all that remains
of soldiers’ dreams.
~

(Borrowing a horse.)

I noticed a small village in the distance, but before I reached it, rain began to fall and darkness closed in. I put up at a solitary farmer’s house for the night, and started again early next morning.

As I was plodding though the grass, I noticed a horse grazing by the roadside and a farmer cutting grass with a sickle. I asked him to do me the favor of lending me his horse. The farmer hesitated for a while, but finally with a touch of sympathy in his face, he said to me, ‘There are hundreds of cross-roads in the grass-moor. A stranger like you can easily go astray. This horse knows the way. You can send him back when he won’t go any further.’

So I mounted the horse and started off, when two small children came running after me. One of them was a girl named kasane, which means manifold. I thought her name was somewhat strange but exceptionally beautiful.
~

Sick on a journey —
over parched fields
dreams wander on.
~

It is with awe
That I beheld
Fresh leaves, green leaves,
Bright in the sun.
~

Frost

Wearing a robe of frost,
the wind spread as it’s sleeping mat;
an abandoned baby.
~

Ah spring, spring,
great is spring,
etcetera.
~

First winter rain —
I plod on,
Traveler my name.
~

Wrapping dumplings in
bamboo leaves, with one finger
she tidies her hair.
~

Drinking morning tea
the monk is peaceful
the chrysanthemum blooms.
~

The temple bell stops.
But the sound keeps coming
out of the flowers.
~

Taking a nap,
feet planted
against a cool wall.
~

In my new clothing
I feel so different, I must
look like someone else.
~

Singing, planting rice,
village songs more lovely
than famous city poems.
~

Fresh spring!
The world is only nine days old –
These fields and mountains!
~

Kannon’s tiled temple
roof floats far away in the clouds
of cherry blossoms
~

Drinking morning tea
the monk is peaceful
the chrysanthemum blooms.
~

The temple bell stops.
But the sound keeps coming
out of the flowers.
~

Taking a nap,
feet planted
against a cool wall.
~

Spring too, very soon!
they are setting the scene for it –
plum tree and moon.
~

A caterpillar,
this deep in fall –
still not a butterfly.
~

A man, infirm
with age, slowly sucks
a fish bone.
~

A snowy morning –
by myself,
chewing on dried salmon.
~

Awake at night –
the sound of the water jar
cracking in the cold.
~

Sick on my journey,
only my dreams will wander
these desolate moors
~

Bush-clover flowers –
they sway but do not drop
their beads of dew
~

Chilling autumn rains
curtain Mount Fuji, then make it
more beautiful to see
~

spring:
a hill without a name
veiled in morning mist
~

scent of plum blossoms
on the misty mountain path
a big rising sun
~

I like to wash,
the dust of this world
in the droplets of dew
~

Long conversations
beside blooming irises
joys of life on the road
~

Morning and evening
Someone waits at Matsushima!
One-sided love.
~

Poverty’s child -
he starts to grind rice
and gazes at the moon
~

On this road
where nobody else travels
autumn nightfall
~

The whole family
all with white hair and canes
visiting graves
~

Winter solitude –
in a world of one color
the sound of wind
~

year’s end, all
corners of this
floating world, swept
~

a field of cotton –
as if the moon had flowered
~

The moon and the sun are eternal travelers. Even the years wander on. A lifetime adrift in a boat or in old age leading a tired horse into the years, every day is a journey. And the journey itself is home.
~

summer grass,
where the warriors
used to dream
~

…even hearing about it after the fact, our hearts throbbed.
~

Another year is gone;
and I still wear
straw hat and straw sandal
~

Sick on a journey
my dreams wander
the withered fields
~

One field
did they plant
I, under the willow
~

Turbulent the sea –
across to Sado stretches
the Milky Way
~

I am the one
who eats his breakfast
gazing at morning glories.
~

Sad nodes
we’re all the bamboo’s children
in the end
~

Sweet-smelling rice fields!
To our right as we push through
the Ariso Sea
~

Should I take it in my hand
it would disappear with my hot tears,
like the frost of autumn.
~

Stillness –
the cicada’s cry
drills into the rocks
~

Craft:

Basho strove to place his reader within an experience whose unfolding might lead to a revelation…

-Lucien Stryk (On Love And Barley: Haiku Of Basho)
~

(The poet’s self.)

A disciple of Matsuo Basho talks about some advice he gave:

The master said, ‘Learn about a pine tree from a pine tree, and about a bamboo stalk from a bamboo stalk.’ What he meant was that the poet should detach his mind from self…and enter into the object, sharing its delicate life and feelings. Whereupon a poem forms itself. Description of the object is not enough: unless a poem contains feelings which have come from the object, the object and the poet’s self will be separate things.
~

Books:

Email This Page