Kamiuma
(February 1942 ~ March 1944)
Forsythia blooming
sun shining
the mind of the ancient
Things are refreshingly cool
a chicken
and his face
A cicada hole
around there
the fragrant color of earth
So full of
white clouds
I catch a grasshopper
I have potatoes to eat
I see a bamboo grove
from where I sit
I long for my home
my home
ice on a harvested field
It's May
the sun and a grove of young pines
are leaning
It's midwinter
there are many mountains
there is one lake
A summer-like mind
this placid water
reminds me of my home country
Living in a field
I bury the fire
deep in a brazier
I talk with a child
who hasn't caught
a single cicada yet
Pee-cho pee-cho
sings a bird
blue mountain comes near
. . . . remembering Basho
A vast grassland
Basho comes all alone
after a wintry blast
I look upon the surface
of one stone
spring light in a bamboo grove
By the fireside tonight
I think of ocean tide ebbing
on a moonlit night
Burning the fallen leaves
I feel infinitude
behind me
A rooster and I
walk
over the frozen earth
I shall respond
to the mountain form shone
by the winter sun
My ears being frost-bitten
the sky is vast
these days
Being with the bare trees
I sleep at night
facing this direction
Ippekiro Nakatsuka (1887 ~ 1946)
____________________________
from Cape Jasmine and Pomegranates
(the free-meter haiku of Ippekiro)
translated by Soichi Furuta
Mushinsha / Grossman 1974
http://www.big.or.jp/~loupe/links/ehisto/eippekiro.shtml
