becoming a walking stick
little bamboo
at the peak of youth
~Issa (www.hakiuguy.com)

becoming a walking stick
little bamboo
at the peak of youth
~Issa (www.hakiuguy.com)

the rivers have
an ancient darkness…
cuckoo
~Issa (www.haikuguy.com)

The temple bell roused me from dreams
And waiting for the starlit dawn

The night, alas! was long as are
One hundred autumn nights.
~The Sarashina Diary (cited: Diaries of Court Ladies of Old Japan)
Even this wandering wind among the pines of the mountain-
I’ve heard that it departs with murmuring sound.
The Sarashina Diary (Diaries of Court Ladies of Old Japan)

The night opens and I cannot sleep,
Yet, I am dreaming dreams,
And, loving them, the moon I do not see.
~Izumi Shikibu, 976-1030 (Diaries of Court Ladies of Old Japan)

In the summer night
The evening still seems present,
But the dawn is here.
To what region of the clouds
Has the wandering moon come home?
~ Kiyohara no Fukayabu (cited: Ogura Hyakunin Isshu)

“on your left,” I heard
on a bicycle built for two
youth passing me…bye

a lightning flash
soaked in green glaze
far beyond the field
~Kuroda Momoko (trans: M Ueda, Far Beyond the Field)

The Chinese expression for “nostalgia” is xiangchou, literally “village sadness” … the grief that accompanies the traveler who cannot find a way back to the home village.
Vera Schwarcz, Bridge Across Broken Time

Hiraeth (pronounced [hiraɪ̯θ] is a Welsh concept of longing for home. Many Welsh people claim hiraeth is a word which cannot be translated, meaning more than solely “missing something” or “missing home.” To some, it implies the meaning of missing a time, an era, or a person. It is associated with the bittersweet memory of missing something or someone, while being grateful of their existence. It can also be used to describe a longing for a homeland, potentially of your ancestors, where you may have never been. Similarly, the Cornish equivalent is hireth.
lost in the woods —
only the sound of a leaf
falling on my hat ~Tagami Kikusha (trans: Makoto Ueda, Far Beyond the Field)
Hiraeth bears considerable similarities with the Portuguese concept of saudade, Galician morriña, Romanian dor, Gaelic cianalas, Russian toska (тоска), German Sehnsucht and Ethiopian tizita (ትዝታ)
I cannot speak of
Yudono, but see how wet
My sleeve is with tears.
~Matsuo Basho, The Narrow Road to Oku (trans: Donald Keene)

Flowering thorn —
the pathway by my home village
is like this!
~Buson (Y Sawa & E Shiffert, Haiku Master Buson)

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