Basho composed this haiku at the beach of "Iro no Hama" in Fukui Prefecture.
He observed with interest the mixture of the hagi's * petals and light red small shellfish.
Nanigoto mo
maneki hatetaru
Susuki kana.
Matsuo Basho (1644-1694)
All of our life
is like silver grass
inviting us destined to die.
Life full of many vicissitudes also, doesn't matter much, when a burial has been finished. Our whole life seems silver grass soughing in the wind as if inviting us.
Shigeki Matsumura (Japan)
Shiratsuyu mo
kobosanu Hagi * no
Uneri kana.
Matsuo Basho (1644-1694)
Bush clover * bends
just enough not to spill
sparkling dewdrops.
The bush clover's twigs with its beautiful flowers flutter in the autumn wind.
Hagi, a Japanese bush clover, is a grass symbolising autumn. Its orthography in kanji involves the Kanji character for Aki, or autumn.
Aki
Aki tatsu ya
Nani ni odoroku
Onmyouji *.
Yosa Buson (1716-1783)
Autumn has come.
What surprises
a fortune-teller * of Yin and Yang?
Buson has here presented the image of Onmyouji * sympathizing with some secret connection between heaven and earth. This haiku, as well as Basho's, is based on the following famous tanka from an earlier historical era I have translated below:
Aki kinu to
Me niwa sayakani
mienedomo
Kaze no oto nizo
Odorokare nuru
(Composer unknown: GKokin waka shuu; Ancient ballad anthology 10th century)
That Autumn has come,
we can't say by giving any evidence.
But the coolness of the wind
informs us of it suddenly.
[All historical notes on the Japanese haiku above by Shigeki Matsumura]
