Haiku
The seashore temple...
Incoming rollers flow in time
To the holy flute.
Commentary
Words mean more to one if they have some immediate relevance; in my case it was the sheer coincidence of seeing a brass plate with the above haiku on it in the promenade while roller-blading down the waterfront of San Francisco. Since I’ve seen a translation of the above with the operative word substituted with ‘breakers’ I guess the pun was unintentional, but… <grin>.
But that isn’t quite all; the poem, if anything, is the city of San Francisco. It’s a lovely lovely city with ups and downs and all-the-way-arounds, and try going along the seashore on a sunny morning and see if you don’t think the haiku has it about right.
— Sidharth
Minstrels Links
Poem #23, Poem #57 and Poem #277 are all classic haiku; the first two are by Basho, the third by Buson.
Poem #198, “Japanese Jokes”, is Peter Porter’s witty take on this very distinctive genre.
Poem #87, by Yakamochi is an example of ‘tanka’, the predecessor of the haiku form.