Listening to the moon

Listening to the moon,
gazing at the croaking of frogs
in a field of ripe rice.

Translated by Robert Hass

poem by Yosa Buson
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Elegy to the Old Man Hokuju

You left in the morning, at evening my heart is in a
thousand pieces.
Why is it so far away?

Thinking of you, I go up on the hill and wander.
Around the hill, why is it such a sadness?

Dandelions yellow and shepherds-purse blooming white --
not anyone to look at them.

I hear a pheasant, calling and calling fervently.
Once a friend was there across the river, living.

Ghostly smoke rises and fades away with a west wind
strong in fields of small bamboo grasses and reedy fields.
Nowhere to leave for.

Once a friend was there across the river, living, but today
not even a bird sings a song.

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poem by Yosa Buson
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Hokku Poems in Four Seasons

Spring

The year's first poem done,
with smug self confidence
a haikai poet.

Longer has become the daytime;
a pheasant is fluttering
down onto the bridge.

Yearning for the Bygones

Lengthening days,
accumulating, and recalling
the days of distant past.

Slowly passing days,
with an echo heard here in a
corner of Kyoto.

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poem by Yosa Buson
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