haiku

[kodalai]

I've been in kind of a haiku mood today. I never used to care much for the genre, until I encountered one written by a master poet of the Tokugawa era. Translated, it reads:
Holed up for winter
I am the master
Of five crates of wastepaper.

This succinct, wry little poem made me fall in love with poetry, this style particularly, all over again. Although I couldn't hope to reproduce that sort of work, my mind has been coming up with little haiku all day.


Summer weather comes
Young student's spirit opens,
Thinking mind shuts down.

Land of the flowers
in college, in spring; is this
what you call Eden?

Fourteen -- no, fifteen --
large koi in the fountain.
Reminds me of lunch.

Leaves shifting in wind
Sunlight winking through shadow
So passes the day.

Heart of luxury
Greatest universities
World's luckiest frog.

Sit by the river,
Enjoy the moment: I am
Never the same twice.

Comments

[oysterverse.livejournal.com]

World's luckiest frog?

[kodalai.livejournal.com]

Frogs in the biology lap. XP

[titlecharacter.livejournal.com]

You need to go read some Issa. Kobayashi Issa is The Man.

In this world
We walk on the roof of hell
Gazing at flowers.

[kodalai.livejournal.com]

I've seen some of his. But I still like that 'winter' one better. ;)

[ayelle.livejournal.com]

Billy Collins: Japan (http://www.bigsnap.com/p-pl-03.html)
A poem about haiku. Very nice.