Robert Hass: the Issa Translations

Sunday was the birthday of poet and translator Robert Hass. I can't think of any better way of celebrating it at Issa's Untidy Hut than to present a selection of my favorite Issa haiku as translated by Hass. Enjoy.




----New Year's Day—
everything is in blossom!
----I feel about average.

----The snow is melting
and the village is flooded
----with children.

----Don't worry spiders
I keep house
----casually
---

----Climb Mount Fuji,
O snail,
----but slowly, slowly.

----Mosquito at my ear—
does it think
----I'm deaf?

----Children imitating cormorants
are even more wonderful
----than cormorants.

A quiet life:

----Under my house
an inchworm
----measuring the joists.

----What a strange thing!
to be alive
----beneath cherry blossoms.

----Moon, plum blossoms,
this, that,
----and the day goes.

----O flea! whatever you do,
don't jump;
----that way is the river.

----In this world
we walk on the roof of hell,
----gazing at flowers.

----Don't kill that fly!
Look—it's wringing its hands,
----wring its feet.

----I'm going out,
flies, so relax,
----make love.

----Seen
through the telescope:
----ten cents worth of fog.

Approaching my village:

----Don't know about the people,
but all the scarecrows
----are crooked.

----Even with insects—
some can sing,
----some can't.

----If the time were good,
asked one more of you to join me,
----flies.

----All the time I pray to Buddha
I keep on
----killing mosquitoes.

----The moon and the flowers,
forty-nine years,
----walking around, wasting time.

----One human being,
one fly,
----in a large room.

----What good luck!
Bitten by
----this year's mosquitoes too.

----Visiting the graves,
the old dog
----leads the way.








----This stupid world—
skinny mosquitoes, skinny fleas,
----skinny children.

----Writing shit about new snow
for the rich
----is not art.

----Mother I never knew,
every time I see the ocean,
----every time—

----Insect on a bough,
floating down river,
----still singing.

His death poem:

----A bath when you're born,
a bath when you die,
----how stupid.




There are other poems by Issa, some classics, that are not here, primarily because the translations of these poems are the ones I feel are the best. Here is the full set of translations of Issa by Hass in pdf form, so you can check for yourself. In addition, if you haven't seen/heard Hass read Issa's haiku, it is a revelation and it is right here.

best,
Don

C