Zen Poetry ~ Bosho's Haiku

Small poems, haikus are tremendously beautiful, very indicative. In so few words, only seventeen syllables, a haiku can say as much as a book will find difficult to say.

One haiku of the Zen master Basho:

An old pond
a frog jumps in
plop.

Finished.

An old pond....

Let the picture arise in your mind. An old pond, an ancient pond, everything silent, awaiting....

An old pond
a frog jumps in
plop.

Finished, the poetry is finished – but it has said many things. It has almost painted the whole thing. You can hear the plop. You can see the frog. You can see the old pond. You can almost touch it. You can feel it.

If poetry does not lead you to meditation, it is not poetry. At the most, it may be a clever composition of words.

A poet is not a composer: a poet is a visionary. He doesn't compose, the poetry happens to him in certain moments – those moments are of meditation. In fact, when the poet is not, then the poetry happens. When the poet is completely absent, suddenly he is filled with something unknown, unasked for; suddenly something of the unknown has entered into him, a fresh breeze has come into his house. Now he has to translate this fresh breeze into language – he is not a composer, he is a translator. A poet is a translator: something happens inside his being and he translates it into language, into words. Something wordless stirs within. It is more like a feeling, and less like a thought. It is less in the head, and more in the heart.