•    Stillness everywhere.

The cicada's voice

Pierces rocks.

•    A cloud,

Trying to enwrap the moonbeams,

•    Old pond frog jump

in water

sound

•    I clap my hands

And with the echoes

It begins the dawn --

The summer moon.

•    For his morning tea

A monk sits down in utter silence --

Confronted by chrysanthemums.

•    Mad with poetry,

I stride like chikusai

Into the wind.

•    The crescent moon --

The eastern sky is dark,

And the sound of a bell.

•    Birth of art --

Song of rice planters,

Chorus from nowhere.

•    Only the shell

Of the cicada left?

Did it sing itse

lf out of existence?

•    When a thing is said,

The lips become very cold

Like the autumn wind.

•    When i look carefully,

I see the nazunia blooming

By the hedge!

- Basho