0. Cover
1. January
Tired of hearing worldly things
Winter confinement
-Kyoshi Takahama 1874-1959
Leaving everything
I go deep in the mountains
Blazing my own trail
Is there a place in this world
Where I can't hear suffering?
-Saigyo 1118-1190
2. February
Over the wintry
Forest, winds howl in rage
With no leaves to blow
-Natsume Soseki 1867-1916
My heart
burns like fire,
but my eyes
are as cold as
dead ashes
-Soyen Shaku 1860-1919
3. March
I have nothing at all–
But this tranquility!
This coolness!
-Kobayashi Issa 1763-1828
Look at the cherry blossoms!
Their color and scent fall with them
Are gone forever.
Yet mindless,
The spring comes again
-Ikkyu 1394-1484
4. April
Although,
The cricket's song has no words
Still, it sounds like sorrow
-Izumi Shikibu 976-1030
Even in warmest glow
how cold my shadow
-Kobayashi Issa 1763-1828
5. May
In this world
we walk on the roof of hell
gazing at flowers
-Kobayashi Issa 1763-1828
Can't you see me
even if I am
right next to you?
6. June
Our life in this world–
to what shall I compare it?
It's like an echo
resounding through the mountains
and off into the empty sky
-Ryõkan Taigu 1758-1831
No sign of death's approach
in the ciccada's voices
-Matsuo Bashō 1644-1694
7. July
Stillness–
the cicada's cry
drills into the rocks
-Matsuo Bashō 1644-1694
This world
Is full of needles and thorns....
Yet lotus blooms
-Kobayashi Issa 1763-1818
8. August
The sound of waves
Now distant, now close
How much of my life remains?
-Santoka Taneda 1882-1940
When there is no place that you have
decided to calf your own,
then no matter where you go,
you are always heading home
-Muso Soseki 1275-1351
9. September
Unchanging doll's faces–
|'ve had no choice, except
to grow old
-Enomoto Seifu 1731-1814
I thought I was free
of passions, so this melancholy
comes as a surprise
Snipes fly up from a marsh
where autumn's twilight falls
-Saigyo 1118-1190
10. October
What do love and hate matter
When I'm here alone
Listening to the sound of rain
Late in this autumn evening
-Dogen 1200-1253
Left behind
To grow old in this world
Without you,
The flowers I pick lose their beauty,
Dyed with dark ink
-lzumi Shilkibu 976-1030
11. November
I'm a wanderer
So let that be my name–
The first winter rain
-Matsuo Bashō 1644-1694
Between Heaven and Earth
A drop or two begins to fall
Of winter rain
-Kyoshi Takahama 1874-1954
12. December
Not knowing why
I feel attached to this world
Where we come only to die
-Natsume Soseki 1867-1916
Last year, a foolish monk
This year, no change!
-Ryõkan 1758-1831
