John Gittins, "Robin Hood's Stride, Harthill Moor, Derbyshire" (1981)
In the interest of paring things down, consider the following haiku by Buson (1716-1783):
I go;
Thou stayest:
Two autumns.
Buson (translated by R. H. Blyth), in R. H. Blyth, Haiku, Volume 4: Autumn-Winter (Hokuseido Press 1952).
Blyth's translation of the second phrase of the haiku is a bit formal and archaic. (Not that I am opposed in principle to archaisms, mind you -- I generally welcome them.) Another way of putting it (even sparer) might be:
I go;
You stay:
Two autumns.
Buson is speaking of autumn, but he is speaking of much more, of course. But we need not "explain" what he is getting at: when it comes to haiku (and all poetry), one needs to learn to keep one's mouth shut.
John Haswell (1855-1925), "Whitnash Church"
This haiku is by Basho (1644-1694):
A flower unknown
To bird and butterfly, --
The sky of autumn.
Basho (translated by R. H. Blyth), Ibid.
As I have noted before, Blyth's four-volume Haiku is the place to start in order to learn about haiku. As I have also noted, one of the wonderful things about Blyth is that he is as knowledgeable about English literature as he is about Japanese literature. Thus, after his translation of the above haiku, he quotes (without comment) a sentence by Richard Jefferies:
"The rich blue of the unattainable flower of the sky drew my soul towards it, and there it rested, for pure colour is rest of heart."
Richard Jefferies, The Story of My Heart: My Autobiography (1883), pages 4-5 .
Very nice, isn't it? -- a Japanese poet of the 17th century and an English writer of the 19th century separately arriving at the same thought half a world away and two hundred years apart.
Robert Morson Hughes (1873-1953), "A Cornish Landscape"
