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By Robert Hass

New Year’s morning—
everything is in blossom!   
   I feel about average.


   A huge frog and I   
staring at each other,   
   neither of us moves.


   This moth saw brightness   
in a woman’s chamber—
   burned to a crisp.


   Asked how old he was   
the boy in the new kimono   
   stretched out all five fingers.


   Blossoms at night,   
like people
   moved by music


   Napped half the day;   
no one
   punished me!


Fiftieth birthday:


   From now on,   
It’s all clear profit,   
   every sky.


   Don’t worry, spiders,   
I keep house   
   casually.


   These sea slugs,   
they just don’t seem   
   Japanese.


Hell:


   Bright autumn moon;   
pond snails crying   
   in the saucepan.


Robert Hass, “After the Gentle Poet Kobayashi Issa” from Field Guide. Copyright © 1973 by Robert Hass. Reprinted with the permission of Yale University Press, http://www.yale.edu/yup/.

Source: Field Guide (1973)

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Poet Bio

Robert Hass
Born in San Francisco, Robert Hass has spent much of his life in his home state of California. The beauty of the West Coast has contributed to the themes of nature and sensory experiences present in Hass’s poetry. His collection Sun Under Wood won the National Book Critics Circle Award. Hass served as U.S. Poet Laureate from 1995 to 1997. See More By This Poet

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