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Basho's Zen Poem

Translated by John Stevens


 

Summer grasses:
all that remains of great soldiers’
imperial dreams


Eaten alive by
lice and fleas -- now the horse
beside my pillow pees


Along the roadside,
blossoming wild roses
in my horse’s mouth


Even that old horse
is something to see this
snow-covered morning


On the white poppy,
a butterfly’s torn wing
is a keepsake


The bee emerging
from deep within the peony
departs reluctantly


Crossing long fields,
frozen in its saddle,
my shadow creeps by


A mountain pheasant cry
fills me with fond longing for
father and mother


Slender, so slender
its stalk bends under dew --
little yellow flower


New Year’s first snow -- ah --
just barely enough to tilt
the daffodil


In this warm spring rain,
tiny leaves are sprouting
from the eggplant seed


O bush warblers!
Now you’ve shit all over
my rice cake on the porch


For those who proclaim
they’ve grown weary of children,
there are no flowers


Nothing in the cry
of cicadas suggests they
are about to die


Updated: 1-12-2000

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