Are the fallen stars
Returning up the sky?
The dews on the grass.

Don't ask about the Six Dynasties at the Sui Palace:
Jewel Maiden and Jade Flower have long since vanished like smoke!
Today, there are only the lakeside willows
which still move like dancers in the spring wind.

The time I went to see my Sister
Whom I loved unendurably,
The winter-night's
River-wind was so cold that
The sanderlings were crying.

The deer which lives
On the evergreen mountain
Where there are no autumn-leaves
Can know the coming of autumn
Only by its own cry.

So stupid of me to hope you'll take to books;
a scholar all my life, I want to raise you the same way.
Baby squalls that to other ears are nothing but noise —
sooner or later they'll give way to the student's drone.

No fields, no house, one poor scholar,
but I have a child, and to my delight it's a boy!
A few paintings, a pair of old inkstones:
your father offers them to you — but will you accept them?

Fist like the mountain fern half unfurled,
skin like the pomegranate when the blossom has just dropped;
all you do is howl, searching for your mother's breast;
beautiful baby eyes that have not learned to tell their father.

In response to Kikaku's hokku on smartweed/firefly:
With the morning-glories I eat my meal, I'm that kind of man

In coming to Japan, Monk Ganjin of Shodai Temple more than seventy times endured difficulties on his ship, and because the salty winds blew into his eyes he finally became blind. I looked at his holy statue:
With a young leaf may I wipe the dew from your eyes?

In Amatsu there was a narrow road through the paddies, and the wind blowing up from the sea was very cold:
A winter day: frozen on horseback, a shadow