Haiku -- Yosa Buson

Guest poem submitted by Sidharth Jaggi:

(Poem #712) Haiku The seashore temple... Incoming rollers flow in time To the holy flute. -- Yosa Buson

Words mean more to one if they have some immediate relevance; in my case it
was the sheer coincidence of seeing a brass plate with the above haiku on it
in the promenade while roller-blading down the waterfront of San Francisco.
Since I've seen a translation of the above with the operative word
substituted with 'breakers' I guess the pun was unintentional, but...
<grin>.

But that isn't quite all; the poem, if anything, is the city of San
Francisco. It's a lovely lovely city with ups and downs and
all-the-way-arounds, and try going along the seashore on a sunny morning and
see if you don't think the haiku has it about right.

Sidharth.

[Minstrels Links]

Poem #23, Poem #57 and Poem #277 are all classic haiku; the first two
are by Basho, the third by Buson.

Poem #198, "Japanese Jokes", is Peter Porter's witty take on this very
distinctive genre.

Poem #87, by Yakamochi is an example of 'tanka', the predecessor of the
haiku form.