Come out to view
the truth of flowers blooming
in poverty
    -- Basho

The new year arrived
in utter simplicity -
and a deep blue sky
    -- Issa

Distant mountains
reflected in the eye
of the dragonfly
    -- Issa

A flowering plum
and a nightingale's love song
he remains alone
    -- Issa

Breakfast enjoyed
in the fine company of
morning glories
    -- Basho

Defeated in the fray
By bigger battlers for love...
Tom-cat seeks a mouse.

    -- Shiko
      (Translated by P. Beilenson)

Plum blossoms:
My spring
Is an ecstacy.
    -- Issa

My noontime nap
disrupted by voices singing
rice-planting songs
    -- Issa

In seasonal rain
along a nameless river
fear too has no name
    -- Buson

Just to say the word
home, that one word alone,
so pleasantly cool
    -- Issa

If a west wind blows,
They pile up in the east -
The fallen leaves.
    -- Buson
      (translated by H. G. Henderson)

In the midst of this world
we stroll along the roof of hell
gawking at flowers
    -- Issa

Black Cloudbank Broken
Scatters in the night...Now see
Moon-lighted mountains!
    -- Basho
      (translated by P. Beilenson)

Brilliant moon,
is it true that you too
must pass in a hurry
    -- Issa

This world of dew
is only a world of dew -
and yet . . .
    -- Issa

Crossing half the sky,
on my way to the capital,
big clouds promise snow
    -- Basho

Lonely silence,
a single cicada's cry
sinking into stone  
    -- Basho

True obedience:
silently the flowers speak
to the inner ear
    -- Onitsura

By that fallen house
The pear-tree stands full-blooming...
An ancient battle-site.

    -- Shiki
      (translated by P. Beilenson)

Traveling this high
mountain trail, delighted
by violets
    -- Basho