In a letter to his friends Kafu and Otofusa in 1775, Yosa Buson lamented the practice of traveling haikai poets shamelessly taking money for various services related to composition, and for letting themselves be entertained: “They just explain how good they are and how poor other poets are and hope to be believed.” After several more lines in this vein, he makes this entreaty to his friends: “You said the sea by your place is rough and no fish can be caught. Whenever you have extra, please send me some. The little wild ducks you sent me last year were especially delicious, Otofusa, and I cannot forget them. If you get some, please send me one.”

            The life of the wandering painter/poet has perhaps not changed so dramatically  in the intervening centuries. We wander from Seattle to San Francisco, or from some obscure and lonely shack deep in the Bitterroot to a bright hut on the Sea of Cortez, dreaming  of Mazatlan or Missoula, hoping for someone somewhere to hear us, remembering our former life as a wandering itinerant deep in the mountains around Uji, hunting for matsutake: “A fragile bridge hangs over the water. Even in such a remote place people are living. It gives shivers to this traveler’s being.”[1]

 

                                                the path petering out

                                                choked with fragrance

                                                wild roses in bloom

 

 

Some selected haiku of Buson:

 

                        歌屑の松に吹れて山ざくら

 

                    uta kudzu no matsu ni fukarete yamazakura

 

                                    blowing through the pines

                                    of a trivial verse

                                    wild cherry blossoms

 

 

                              寂山人は人也かんこどりは鳥なりけり

 

                        yamabito wa hitonari kankodori ha tori narikeri

 

                                    a hermit: merely a person

                                    a cuckoo: merely a bird

 

 

                   寂として客の絶間のぼ たん哉

         

          seki toshite  kaku no taema no  botan kana

 

                                    silently

                                    in the gap between visitors

                                    a peony blooms

 

 

               蓼での葉を此君と申せ 雀鮓

                       

                       tade no ha wo konokimi to mose azumezushi

 

                                    we call our friend

                                    the water pepper leaf

                                    sparrow sushi

 

 

                     しのゝめや露の近江の麻畠

 

                      shino no meya rou no afumi no asa batake

 

                                    daybreak —

                                    in a dewdrop at Lake Biwa[2]

                                    a field of flax

 

 

                      几市きのふの空のありどころ

 

                      ika nobori  kinou no sora no ari dokoro

 

                                    a kite

                                    in yesterday’s sky

                                    in the same place

 

 

                      短夜や芦間流るゝ蟹の泡

 

                 mijika yo ya ashima nagaruru kani no awa

 

                                    this short summer night

                                    flowing through the reeds

                                    bubbles from crabs

 

                    垣越えて蟇の避行かやりかな

 

                 kaki koete hiki no sake yuku kayari kana

 

                                    seen from a hedge:

                                    a toad creeps out to avoid

                                    a smudge fire

 

 

                     鮓つけて誰待おしもなき身哉

 

                 sushi tsukete taematsu toshi mo naki mi kana

 

                                    soaking raw fish

                                    some wait even a year

                                    not me

 

 

 

 

All of the the above haiku were tranlsated from the Japanese from:

 

            Shimizu Takayuki. Yosa Buson Shû  (Shinchô Nihon Koten Shûsei, No 32).  Tokyo.  Shinchôsha, 1979.

           

            與謝 蕪村集：新潮日本古典 集成　(第三二回)　新潮社版