Can you believe it? National Poetry Month is already more than halfway over! Seeing as it's going by so quickly, we thought we'd round up the poems we've shared so far from our Japanese poetry collections. Here they are below:
"The sea is black, is asleep, I have reached an inn Abruptly screaming someone ran away, at midnight A road after snow, a car arrives at the station I walk over a moistened bridge, how bright the rain Coldly blooming forth, a flower, its shadow Stars reflect in fallow paddies, how warm the night I look up at a crematory smokestack's hugeness The Lord Buddha's yellow flowers, without fragrance Listening to bells at day's end, today, I walk"
–Ozaki Hōsai
"Slowly I soak
my painful hands in the hillside spring"
–Tadeo Okazaki
"a butterfly falls and all of a sudden puddles freeze over"
–Yasuyo Onishi
"Fish with an ancient face, caught in a winter river"
–Kimiko Itami
“A cicada, singing at dusk falls from a pine tree, still dripping”
–Nobuko Katsura
"There is a cliff inside my head. and day by day a fragment of earth crumbles off it"
–Ishikawa Takuboku
“May, come quick! the earth at the horse’s hooves has fallen in”
–Kiyoko Uda
"Onto a hundred silver trees the moon drops blue dew"
–Koko Kato
"the moon and I alone are left here cooling on the bridge"
–Kikusha
"Carry me off as if scooping up fallen leaves in one stroke, won’t you?"
–Yuko Kawano
"an old cherry tree in full bloom fervent feelings of old age"
–Basho
Check out round 2 here!
f you enjoyed these poems, you will definitely enjoy reading our poetry collections in their entirety. These particular poems come from The Haiku Seasons, A Long Rainy Season, The Haiku Apprentice, and Right Under the Big Sky, I Don't Wear a Hat. National Poetry Month is not over, though, so we'll be scattering more haiku and tanka and free verse Japanese poetry on our social media and blog throughout the rest of April – cheers!