Haiku poem by Issa

  

Selected Haiku by Issa

By Robert Hass



 

    Don’t worry, spiders,

I keep house

    casually.

    New Year’s Day—

everything is in blossom!

    I feel about average.

    The snow is melting

and the village is flooded

    with children.

    Goes out,   

comes back—

    the love life of a cat.

    Mosquito at my ear—

does he think   

    I’m deaf?   

    Under the evening moon

the snail

    is stripped to the waist.

    Even with insects—

some can sing,

   some can’t.   

    All the time I pray to Buddha

I keep on

   killing mosquitoes.

    Napped half the day;

no one   

    punished me!

6 haiku by Issa from The Essential Haiku: Versions of Basho, Buson, and Issa, edited and with an introduction by Robert Hass. Used by permission of HarperCollins Publishers.


Source: The Essential Haiku: Versions of Basho Buson and Issa (The Ecco Press, 1994)