summer night-- the moon

.夏の夜や河辺の月も今三日

natsu no yo ya kawabe
no tsuki mo ima mikka

summer night--
the moon by the river
just a sliver

This is an early haiku written in the 1790s. The rhyme in my translation is accidental--so I decided to allow it. The moon is a "three-day moon"...just a sliver.

WARM SUMMER SUN

Warm summer sun,
Shine kindly here,
Warm southern wind,
Blow softly here.
Green sod above,
Lie light, lie light.
Good night, dear heart,
Good night, good night.

Mark Twain

1792
.寝せ付て外へは出たり夏の月
nese-tsukete soto e wa detari natsu no tsuki

it's bedtime
but out I go...
summer moon

SUMMER SONG


Wanderer moon
smiling a
faintly ironical smile
at this
brilliant, dew-moistened
summer morning,—
a detached
sleepily indifferent
smile, a
wanderer's smile,—
if I should
buy a shirt
your color and
put on a necktie
sky-blue
where would they carry me?

William Carlos Williams

1817
.短夜や草はついついついと咲
mijika yo ya kusa wa tsui-tsui-tsui to saku

short summer night--
the grasses bloom
swish, swish, swish!

MY KIND

My kind? I don’t know my kind.
I see the sunlight speaking
in the windy leaves — a clear,
cold, early summer day that says
whatever is lost will come down
the daylight to meet you.

Forget it. There’s never anyone.
And I find myself wanting
to invent a new language. My
country’s the scratch of rain on
glass, these straight miles of
crucified wire — empty as a rose.

Remember the night skies? Navy.
A silk drawn slowly from the
breast pocket for the last deep
trick of the stars: the splash,
the scraps of silver tinselling
down in the flooding white light.

Robert Dana



(all haiku by issa, translated by david g. lanou, here.)