Yasuhara Teishitsu
destroyed all but three

of his
3,000
haiku

leaving us with less
than 30 of his words.

self critical
to a fault

leaves us the saying
of the unsayable.

*******

KORE WA KORE WA TO BAKARI HANA NO YOSHINO YAMA

“Ah! Ah! Ah! & “Ah! ” all
I can say...breath taken away
as Yoshino blossoms!

For Basho this was “the finest hokku ever written.”

Mt. Yoshino has four groves of 100,000 white mountain cherry trees and for three days in April the hill blossoms with an intenseness of white. To behold such a sight...and once beheld...to try to pour its wonder into words...how to say the unsayable! The original first line has an irregular six-syllable first line so I have made all my lines irregular as if broken by the beauty before them.

Dónall Dempsey

http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/this-one-blossoming/