“Moon” by Saiba

Saiba was a Zen Buddhist monk who wrote this jisei or death haiku as he sensed his end approach in the fall of 1858. He finally died on the night of the harvest moon.

So I’ll just scoot
my pillow closer to
the full autumn moon.

—Translated by David Bowles, May 2015

Original Japanese

Meigetsu no
hō e korobasu
makura kana

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