Takaha Shugyo haiku and tanka translations

Takaha Shugyo (1930-) is a Japanese poet. He was born in Japan's mountainous Yamagata Prefecture and began writing haiku at age fifteen. He studied with the renowned Yamaguchi Seishi and Akimoto Fujio, won the Young Poet's Award in 1965, then went on to found the haiku magazine KARI in 1978.

Wild geese pass
leaving the emptiness of heaven
revealed
― Takaha Shugyo, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Are the geese flying south?
The candle continues to flicker ...

Love, a little church that standing all alone,

waits with open doors,

but nobody goes there to pray,

the prayers will go unsaid, now, where to go?

which way? love, be my beacon,

teach me to look at an empty sky without fear.

There is a land by faith I’ve seen

Where skies no clouded regions know;

Where they know not the sorrows of time

and no shadows fall to blight the view

That land no want has ever known,

Nor pain nor sickness nor distress;

there, Death, the last enemy, is slain;

There those who meet shall part no more,

And those long parted meet again.

There’s a land far away..

Beyond these wild winds and gloomy skies,

Beyond Death’s cloudy portal,

There is a land where beauty never dies

And love becomes immortal;

The Shijing or Shi-Jing or Shih-Ching (“Book of Songs” or “Book of Odes”) is the oldest Chinese poetry collection, with the poems included believed to date from around 1200 BC to 600 BC. According to tradition the poems were selected and edited by Confucius himself. Since most ancient poetry did not rhyme, these may be the world’s oldest extant rhyming poems.

Shijing Ode #4: “JIU MU”
ancient Chinese rhyming poem circa (1200 BC - 600 BC)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

These are poems about time, mortality, death, decay and loss ...

These are poems about animals by Michael R. Burch.

Ballade of the Bicameral Camel
by Michael R. Burch

There once was a camel who loved to hump.
Please get your lewd minds out of their slump!
He loved to give RIDES on his large, lordly lump!

***

Don’t ever hug a lobster!
by Michael R. Burch

These are my modern English translations of Takaha Shugyo haiku and tanka...

hatogata horarete ichiju haya mebuku

A single tree
with a heart carved into its trunk
blossoms prematurely
—Takaha Shugyo, loose translation by Michael R. Burch

dôkefuku nugazu tentômushi no shi yo

Still clad in its clown's costume—
the dead ladybird.
—Takaha Shugyo, loose translation by Michael R. Burch

ochitsubaki ware naraba kyuryu e otsu

Oh, fallen camellias,
if I were you,
I'd leap into the torrent!

These are poems about animals such as ants, canaries, ducks, dromedaries, elephants, hippos, rhinos, mockingbirds, pelicans and ravens.

The Hippopotami
by Michael R. Burch

There’s no seeing eye to eye
with the awesomely huge Hippopotami:
on the bank, you’re much taller;
going under, you’re smaller
and assuredly destined to die!

***

On the Horns of a Dilemma (I)
by Michael R. Burch

These are original haiku written by Michael R. Burch, many of them under the influence of the Oriental masters of the form.

Dark-bosomed clouds
pregnant with heavy thunder ...
the water breaks
—Michael R. Burch

***

Silver
by Michael R. Burch

These are insect haiku requested by Emma Burleigh for publication in her upcoming book Earth Color ...

While a cicada
sings softly
a single leaf falls ...
—Issa, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch