Matsuo Basho: Peace

Matsuo Basho
(1644-1694)

Poetry on Peace

Matsuo Basho (1644-1694):

Travel Sketches (1684)
Narrow Road to the
Deep North (1689)

Edited by Peter Y. Chou
WisdomPortal.com

TRAVEL SKETCHES
I like to wash,
By way of experiment,
The dust of this world
In the droplets of dew.

****
I am still alive
at the end of a dream
on my journey,
fall of an autumn day.

****
Mid-winter peonies
and a distant plover sings.
Is that a cuckoo I hear
in the snow?

****
Blanket of white plum,
where are the cranes—
stolen or hidden
behind the plum blossoms?

****
I picked my way
Through a mountain road,
And I was greeted
By a smiling violet.

****
Fresh spring!
The world is only
Nine days old—
O fields and mountains!

****
Many things of the past
flood to my mind
as I stand in the garden
gazing at a cherry tree.

****
There is a man
Sitting for meditation
In a temple corner
On a spring night.

NARROW ROAD TO
THE DEEP NORTH
Days and months are
travellers of eternity.
So are the years
that pass by.

****
Silent alone in a cave,
my first view of summer,
a flowing waterfall.

****
Three months after we saw
Cherry bloosoms together
I came to see the glorious
Twin trunks of the pine.

****
It looks as if
Iris flowers had bloomed
On my feet—
Sandals laced in blue

****
In the utter silence
Of a temple,
A cicada's voice alone
Penetrates the rocks.

****
Blessed indeed
Is this South Valley
Where gentle wind breathes
The faint aroma of snow.

****
The great Milky Way
Spans in a single arch
The billow-crested sea,
Falling on Sado beyond.

****
Matsuo Basho (1644-1694),
Narrow Road to the Deep North
(translated by Nobuyui Yuasa)
Penguin Books, Baltimore, 1966,
pp. 97, 101, 111, 112, 123, 124, 131
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