Favorite Basho Poems

I received some upsetting personal news and am not feeling creative today, so I thought you might enjoy some of my favorite haiku by Basho instead. The following were translated into English from Japanese by Sam Hamill:

You weren’t home when I came
even the plum blossoms were
in another yard

Between our two lives
there is also the life of
the cherry blossoms

Just one possession
in this lightly-lived life —
a gourd of rice

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The Negative

Where is trouble kept?
Worry and sadness and anger
If I could, I would banish them into nothingness
But why must dislodging it from my heart
Put a shadow of it in yours?
A hydra which grows twice as many heads
As those that are cut and lopped
I heave a rusted sword and can only hope