The 157 haiku

One of these holds the first thirty seconds, each time you open your mail. None of them is here to be searched for, which is rather the point — but they are all here to be read.

57 translations

Bashō, Buson, Issa, Shiki and a few others. The Japanese originals have been in the public domain for centuries; the English translations that circulate most widely — Blyth, Henderson, Hass — are not, which is the trap in collecting “famous haiku” from the web. So these renderings were made here, and are labelled as machine translations wherever they appear. Each carries the romaji of its source so it can be checked rather than taken on trust.

They follow the sense rather than forcing 5-7-5: Japanese counts on, not syllables, and padding a translation out to fit the shape is how you end up with a poem the poet did not write.

100 originals

Written for the extension, all of them 5-7-5, and shown unsigned — they are there to fill thirty seconds rather than to be admired.

Morning fog lifting —
the mountain was always there,
waiting to be seen.
Rain on the window;
the whole afternoon becomes
one long grey river.
A crow lifts, and snow
slides from the pine branch it left —
the branch springs upward.
Steam from the teacup
curls, uncurls, and disappears.
Nothing was hurried.
The pond holds the moon
without gripping it. Water
knows how to let go.
First light on the sill;
dust turns slowly in the beam,
in no hurry now.
Cold stone under palm.
The mountain does not answer.
That is the answer.
An apple falling
makes the whole orchard listen
for a small moment.
Wind through summer grass —
the field bows, stands, bows again,
practicing patience.
The kettle's low sigh
before the boil: a long breath
the house takes with it.
Snow fills the footprints
of whoever walked here first.
The path forgets us.
A moth at the lamp
all night, and by morning, gone.
The lamp is still warm.
Low tide: the harbor
shows what it has been holding —
rope, shell, and old glass.
Two pines on the ridge
lean the same way. Forty years
of the same north wind.
The river is loud
where it is shallow. Deep pools
say nothing at all.
Late bees in the thyme,
heavy, unbothered, going
slowly home again.
Wet street after rain;
each lit window in the block
lands twice on the ground.
The old dog dreaming
runs without leaving the rug.
Somewhere, he is fast.
Plum blossom, then wind.
Nothing lost — the ground is white
where the tree was white.
A held note fading;
the hall keeps it a moment
after the hand stops.
Fog on the water.
The far shore is still over
there, being patient.
The stone in the stream
did not choose to be smooth. Years
of water chose that.
Autumn: the maple
gives all of it at once, then
stands there, unashamed.
Bare branch, one brown leaf
holding on past all reason.
Then a gust. Then not.
The cat at the door
neither in nor out, teaching
the hinge to be still.
Salt on the window;
the sea does not need us to
watch it to be there.
Bread rising slowly.
No amount of watching it
will make it happen.
The lantern goes out;
now I can see how many
stars have been waiting.
Cicadas at noon —
the heat itself seems to sing,
and no one is rushed.
Ink meets wet paper
and goes where it wants to go.
The brush only waits.
Deep snow, and no sound
except the sound of deep snow,
which is almost sound.
The bell, struck once, spends
a long time becoming air.
Do not strike again.
Small lights in the field.
The dark was never empty —
only not looked at.
Rain finds the one crack
in the roof and works all night.
It has nowhere else.
Long train, empty seats,
window full of fields going
somewhere without me.
The moon does not care
that no one is looking up.
It rises the same.
Green moss on the stone
took a hundred wet autumns
and asked for no one.
An empty bowl waits
better than a full one does.
It knows what it's for.
Wind chimes, then silence,
then wind chimes. The wind is not
performing for us.
Frost on the first step.
Whatever I meant to rush
can wait for the sun.
Old man on the bench
feeding pigeons one seed each.
He has the whole day.
The lake at first light
has not decided to be
blue or grey. Neither.
Cut grass in the sun
gives back the whole afternoon
as a single smell.
The heron stands still
so long the fish forget it.
Then it does not stand.
Candle in daylight —
still burning, doing its work,
needed by no one.
Warm stone after dusk
gives the day back, hour by hour.
Nothing is wasted.
A door left open
all afternoon: the garden
came in and stayed there.
Slow rain on the pond
writes a thousand small circles
and erases them.
The empty hallway
keeps the sound of your footsteps
a second longer.
Winter tree, bare now —
you can see the whole shape it
was hiding all year.
Steam on the mirror.
Whatever face is in there
can wait a moment.
Sparrows in the hedge
argue about the whole world.
The hedge does not mind.
The tide comes back in
without being called by us,
exactly on time.
One boat on the bay
going nowhere in a way
that looks like knowing.
Bamboo bends and holds.
The storm spends itself and leaves.
The bamboo stands up.
Peeling an orange
slowly — the whole room now knows
what an orange is.
Snowmelt in the eaves
counting out the afternoon
one drop at a time.
The letter I wrote
and did not send is the one
that said the true thing.
Dry riverbed waits.
It has done this before, and
knows how long rain takes.
Two cups on the tray,
one still warm. The afternoon
was here a moment.
The mountain path turns
and the whole valley opens.
It waited for that.
Grey heron, grey sky,
grey water — and then it moves,
and the world is clear.
Bee in the foxglove:
the whole flower shakes with work
that isn't hurried.
First cold night: the house
makes small sounds, settling itself
for the long season.
Ripe fruit falls when ripe.
No one has ever hurried
an apple downward.
The well is patient.
It holds the sky in a ring
and waits for the rope.
Old bridge, new water.
Each day it is a whole new
river underneath.
Lamplight through the blind
lays a ladder on the floor.
No one has to climb.
The kite is only
as free as the string is long,
and knows this, and climbs.
Mist in the valley
will lift or will not lift. Both
are fine with the hills.
Standing in the door
between the cold rain and fire,
belonging to both.
The sea, all evening,
practicing the same one sound
and never tiring.
A single white plum
in the dark, doing its best
to be a lantern.
Dust along the sill
keeps the shape of what was there
that has been moved since.
Two candles burning.
One leans to the other one.
Neither moves closer.
Winter sun, low, gold,
taking its time on the wall
before it lets go.
The wren does not know
how big the sky is, and sings
the whole of it out.
Rain stops. The gutters
go on talking about it
a good while longer.
Between two long notes
the silence is also part
of what was written.
The path up the hill
does not shorten if I sigh.
It only lengthens.
Blue hour: the birds stop
one by one, like lamps going
out along a street.
The old apple tree
gives less each year and is loved
more each year for it.
Wet ink, unfinished —
even the pause in the line
is part of the line.
Sheep on the hillside
move like slow weather across
the green of the hill.
The stream under ice
keeps going, saying nothing,
certain of April.
Hands around a cup:
the whole point of the morning,
and it takes no time.
Gull on the piling
facing the cold wind for hours.
This is its whole plan.
Beach at low tide, wide —
the sea has gone off somewhere
and will be right back.
The oldest cedar
was also once a seed that
no one noticed fall.
Bell in the far town
marks an hour I did not use.
It does not scold me.
Green tea, second cup —
the first one was for thirst, this
one is for sitting.
Small spider working
between two stalks all evening.
No one is coming.
The window I clean
shows the same street it showed me,
only more of it.
First snow, and the world
agrees, for one hour, to be
quiet about it.
The horse in the field
does not think about the field.
That is why it's calm.
Long shadow, short day —
the light is not running out,
only lying down.
Wind drops. The whole wood
holds one enormous still breath,
then lets it all go.
Nothing in the box
I was so afraid to see.
Only old buttons.
Last light on the wall
climbs slowly and then is gone.
Tomorrow, again.
Sit still long enough
and the room begins to show
what it always held.

All of them are MIT licensed, like the rest of the project. Quote them freely.