Poetry Sundays

Selected Haiku by Issa

by Robert Hass

    

    Don’t worry, spiders,

I keep house

    casually.

    New Year’s Day—

everything is in blossom!

    I feel about average.

    The snow is melting

and the village is flooded

    with children.

    Goes out,   

comes back—

    the love life of a cat.

    Mosquito at my ear—

does he think   

    I’m deaf?   

    Under the evening moon

the snail

    is stripped to the waist.

    Even with insects—

some can sing,

   some can’t.   

    All the time I pray to Buddha

I keep on

   killing mosquitoes.

    Napped half the day;

no one   

    punished me!