Thursday, June 26, 2014

But wonderful

"Go to the pine if you want to learn about the pine, or to the bamboo if you want to learn about the bamboo. And in doing so, you must leave your subjective preoccupation with yourself. Otherwise you impose yourself on the object and do not learn. Your poetry issues of its own accord when you and the object have become one - when you have plunged deep enough into the object to see something like a hidden glimmering there. However well-phrased your poetry may be, if your feeling is not natural - if the object and yourself are separate - then your poetry is not true poetry but merely your subjective counterfeit. Submerge yourself into the object until its intrinsic nature becomes apparent, stimulating poetic impulse."

Matsuo Basho, 'Sanzoshi'

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Good morning, sparrow...
Writing on my clean veranda
With your dewy feet.

Shiki
....................

The old messenger
Proffering his plum-branch first…
Only then the letter.

Kikaku
...................

Ashes, my burnt hut
But wonderful,
The cherry blooming on my hill.

Tachibana Hokushi
..................

I scooped up the moon
In my water bucket...
And spilled it on the grass.

Ryuho

.................

Old weary willows....
I thought how long the road would be
When you went away

Buson

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