The Haiku and Poems of
Nozawa Boncho
(d.1714)

piled for burning
brushwood
starts to bud

The brushwood,
Though cut for fuel,
Is beginning to bud.

-

a shrike's cry ~
light slants through
the red pine grove

-

naganaga to
kawa hito suji ya
yuki no hara

The long, long river
A single line
On the snowy plain.

-

All night the ragged
clouds and wind had only one
companion... the moon

To ranging winds
companion: -- in the sky
the single moon.

-

kasamura ni
kawazu kowagaru
yumagure

Frightened by a thicket
With a frog in it
Just at twilight

-

Ichinaka wa
mono no nioi ya
natsu no tsuki

Around the town
the smells of things --
summer moon

-

Love.
So many different ways
to have been in love.
- tr. Lenore Mayhew

The maidservants
Trying to take a peep
Knock down the screen!

A razor,
Rusted in a single night,--
The summer rains!

-

kiri no ki no
kaze ni kamawanu
ochiba kana

When no wind at all
disturbs the kiri tree—
the leaves that fall!

From the paulownia
without a breath of wind--
falling leaves

See ... the heavy leaf
on the silent windless day ...
falls of its own will

-

How cool cut hay smells
when carried through the farm gate
as the sun comes up

-

wasgu bi sy bi
kusu no kare e ni
hi wa irinu

At an eagle’s nest
on dead camphor branches
the sun goes down.

-

Throwing away the ashes,
The white plum-blossoms
Became cloudy.

-

mono no oto
hitori taoruru
kagashi kana

A sound of something!
The scarecrow has fallen down
of itself.

There is a hushed sound
Of the scarecrow, fallen down
Alone to the ground.

a soft sound
the scarecrow has fallen
to the ground

-