"Haiku: Eastern Culture" - Translations and commentary by Reginald H. Blyth

A haiku is not a poem, it is not literature; 

it is a hand becoming, 

a door half-opened, 

a mirror wiped clean.  

It is a way of returning to nature, 

to our moon nature, 

our cherry blossom nature, 

our falling leaf nature, 

in short, to our Buddha nature. 


It is a way in which the cold winter rain, 

the swallows of evening, 

even the very day in its hotness, 

and the length of the night, 

become truly alive, 

share in our humanity, 

speak their own silent 

and expressive language.


SOURCE —Haiku: Eastern Culture, 1949, Volume One, p. 243. 

Translations and commentary by Reginald H. Blyth

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