Three Buson Haiku

translated by Emiko Miyashita and Michael Dylan Welch

First published in Haidan (Japan) #2, February 2016, pages 162–163. These poems were selected from more than 200 previously unknown haiku by Buson that were discovered in 2015, and the following may have been their very first translation into English.

蜻吟や眼鏡をかけて飛歩行

kagerō ya menage o kakete tobiaruki

flying around

with his glasses on

a dragonfly

我焼し野に驚くや艸の花

ware yakishi no ni odoroku ya kusa no hana

in my burnt field

the surprise

of grass flowers

傘も化けて目のある月夜哉

kasa mo bakete me no aru tsukiyo kana

my umbrella, too

becomes a one-eyed monster

this moonlit night