Published by Haiku Universe, Brief Poems, Poem Today, Het Veer (Japan), Haiku Video, HaikuViet (in a Vietnamese translation), Saatchi Art, and a number of Pinterest pages

As I worked on a page about the best lyric poems of all time, the haiku above came to me "out of blue nothing" and without any prior intention or forethought I ended up translating or interpreting a number of haiku myself. Did some ancient master provide the gift as a way of encouraging me to pay oriental lyric poetry its due? In any case, I consider this to be my first "real" haiku and probably still my best. 

***

Sad,
the end that awaits me —
to think that before autumn yields
I'll be a pale mist
shrouding these rice fields.
—Ono no Komachi, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

***

Now bitterly I watch
fierce autumn’s winds
battering the rice stalks,
suspecting I'll never again
find anything to harvest.
—Ono no Komachi, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

***

Watching wan moonlight
illuminate tree limbs,
my heart also brims,
overflowing with autumn.
—Ono no Komachi, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

***

Alas, the beauty of the flowers came to naught
while I watched the rain, lost in melancholy thought ...
—Ono no Komachi, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

***

Like flowers wilted by drenching rains,
my beauty has faded in the onslaught of my forlorn years.
—Ono no Komachi, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

***

Once-colorful flowers faded,
while in my drab cell
life's impulse also abated
as the long rains fell.
—Ono no Komachi, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

***

Am I to spend the night alone
atop this summit,
cold and lost?
Won't you at least lend me
your robes of moss?
—Ono no Komachi (GSS XVII:1195), loose translation/interpretation by Mich

***

Watching the long, dismal rains
inundating the earth,
my heart too is washed out, bleeds off
with the colors of the late spring flowers.
—Ono no Komachi, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

***

This vain life!
My looks and talents faded
like these cherry blossoms downthrown
by endless dismal rains
that I now survey, alone.
—Ono no Komachi, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

***

This flower's color
has drained away,
while in idle thoughts
my life drained away
as the long rains fell.
—Ono no Komachi (KKS XII:113), loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

***

How brilliantly
tears rain upon my sleeve
in bright gemlets,
for my despair cannot be withstood,
like a surging flood!
—Ono no Komachi (KKS XII:557), loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

***

Now that I approach
life’s inevitable winter
your ardor has faded
like blossoms wilted
by late autumn rains.
—Ono no Komachi, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Keywords/Tags: Ono no Komachi, Komachi, translation, Japan, Japanese, waka, modern English, rain, rains, flower, flowers, wilt, wilting