Short Poems

By Hakone Road
I cross over — and come
to Izu Bay!
On the little island offshore
I see the waves breaking

Bird hunting at a place called Tokami Plain, I saw a clump of boneset blossoming in front of a deserted hut:
Boneset, why are you blooming
in the autumn wind?
Your master's in his
old house now —
didn't you know?

On seeing a child crying by the road and learning that its parents had died:
Bitter sight —
I watch and my tears
will not stop —
the orphaned child
searching for its mother

The bamboo frond
the shamaness dipped
in boiling water
gently bends, bobbing and recovering —
so bobs the world — let it

As the warrior reaches up
to straighten his quivered arrows,
hail glances
from his gauntlet —
Nasu's plain of bamboo grass

As evening comes
the sea wind blows cold;
on the little islands
in sight beyond the waves,
snow goes on falling

" Written when the poet was seventy-six; his mother died when he was twenty-five " :
Even years ago
I thought of her
as one from years ago —
how useless! —
to be still longing for my mother

Written in autumn when spending the night near the grave of his wife, the mother of Teika:
So seldom I come at night —
there beneath the moss
does she hear forever
this mournful wind in the pines?

Written around the middle of the ninth month, when the moon was shining brightly. In the late fall of the previous year, he had fallen ill and taken Buddhist vows:
Who'd have thought it?
that the autumn I said goodby to
would come round again
and I'd be here
to see its moon once more

Sent to a woman on a rainy day:
When longings are too great
and I stare
at the sky in your direction,
spring rains come down,
breaking through the mist