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Japanese Death Poems
examples from a book by Yoel Hoffmann.
BASHO Died on the twelfth day of the tenth month 1694 at the age of fifty-one.
On a journey, ill:
my dream goes wandering
over withered fields.
GIUN Died on the twelfth day of the tenth month 1333 at the age of eighty-one
All doctrins split asunder Zen Teaching cast away-- Fourscore years and one. The sky now cracks and falls The earth cleaves open-- In the heart of the fire Lies a hidden spring.
BUSON Died on the twenty-fifth day of the twelfth month 1783 at the age of sixty-eight
Of late the nights are dawning plum-blossom white.
MUMON GENSEN
Died on the twenty-second day of the third
Month 1390
at the age of sixty-eight
Life is like a
cloud of mist
Emerging from a mountain cave
And death A
floating moon In
its celestial course.
If you think too much.
About the meaning they may have
You'll be bound forever
Like an ass to a stake.
SHUHO Died in 1767
Cicada shell: little did I know it was my life.
SHAGAI Died on the twenty-eighth day of the second month, 1795
Reality is flowerlike: cold clouds sinking through the dusk.
SENRYU Died on the second day of the sixth month 1827
Like dewdrops on a lotus leaf I vanish.
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