Michael Burch Poet Haiku

Issa translations 3

Don’t migrate geese!
You cannot escape
sorrow everywhere.
—Kobayashi Issa, translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Don’t cry,
migrating geese;
everywhere the world’s the same.
—Kobayashi Issa, translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

How they glare
when I return:
the geese at my gate.
(Or is it theirs?)
—Kobayashi Issa, translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

A talented goose
posed on one foot
in the rice field.
—Kobayashi Issa, translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

As the snow melts
the village brims
with children.
—Kobayashi Issa, translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

The spring’s
first butterfly
swaggers.
—Kobayashi Issa, translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

The pretty rice-planting girl
with a butterfly
asleep on her back.
—Kobayashi Issa, translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

The butterfly
flutters back
to Buddha’s lap.
—Kobayashi Issa, translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Hole in the wall?
Peeping Tom!
I spy on the pretty sky.
—Kobayashi Issa, translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

The child
gives her dolls
a good scolding.
—Kobayashi Issa, translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

The old doll
suns herself
in the store window.
—Kobayashi Issa, translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Mocking 
the perspiring farmer,
the jaunty crow.
—Kobayashi Issa, translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

New Year’s Day
I welcome a guest:
nestless bird.
—Kobayashi Issa, translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Likewise homeless,
this first day,
in Edo.
—Kobayashi Issa, translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

New Year’s first rain:
my grass-roofed hut’s
first leak.
—Kobayashi Issa, translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

The wild daisies
celebrate:
first day of spring.
—Kobayashi Issa, translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

You’ve ruined my dream,
nightmare crow,
with your cawing!
—Kobayashi Issa, translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Spring returns
simply but elegantly
with a pale blue sky.
—Kobayashi Issa, translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Time flies,
so fast
the bonfires burn out.
—Kobayashi Issa, translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

A ritzy kite
smirks above
a beggar’s hut.
—Kobayashi Issa, translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

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