Fifteen

Someone caught a small crow, the size of a lump of coal, and caged it
in front of his house in Murasaki village. All night, I listened to the mother
flying about, crying in the dark. Moved, I wrote:

      In night's blind darkness
      fruitlessly searching for
      the baby she loves,
      the mother crow continued
      to cry until sunrise.

Written for the thief caught in his own village:

      In falling spring rain,
      a bird circles fresh bait:
      in his own village

A simpathetic poem for innocent birds eating food
put out in the shogun's hunting grounds:

      Two cranes, side by side,
      forage on, unwittingly.
      One will soon be dead

Risshi wrote:

      As the doe nurses
      her newborn fawn, the arrow
      has eyes to find her. 

Even the most heartless hunter must be humbled by such cruelty
and renounce the ways of this world.


Kobayashi Issa
translated by Sam Hamil