Japanese haiku by Busan

The Japanese haiku is a poem seventeen syllables long, usually divided into three lines of five, seven and five syllables each, often infused with mystical zen awareness. Usually, the brief haiku leads the reader to visualise a season through a key word, and to associate other thoughts and imagery from one’s own experience, thereby inviting the reader to become a participant in creating joy from the poem.

Riverbank plum-tree….
Do your reflected blossoms
Really flow away?

Buson (1715-1783), Quoted with permission from The Four Seasons, Translation by Peter Beilenson, The Peter Pauper Press

Woodblock print by Utagawa Hiroshike (1892), Waseda Unversity Theatre Museum. www.ukiyo-e.org