Having read nearly 300 pages of Ueda’s Basho and His Interpreters, I find that my favorite poems still tend to be those that are the most concrete and that require the least knowledge of Japanese culture or Japanese literature:
a dragonfly
vainly trying to settle
onto a blade of grass
tonbô / ya / toritsuki / kaneshi / kusa / no / ue
dragonfly / :/ holding / is-unable / grass / ‘s / upside
COMMENTARY
In general short verse form, as it evolves with time, tends to focus more and more on things minute and delicate. This hokku shows the beginning of that tendency – Handa
This looks likes simple descriptive poem, and yet it makes us wonder whether Basho’s eyes were not observing something important in the very heart of nature. – Momota
Of course, this poem reminds me a number of summer photographs I took, like this one,
so it’s probably not surprising it’s one of my favorites.