Keith Polette

Letter from Basho to Robert Frost

Here too, my old friend, the woods are white with winter, their branches spread against the sky like omikuji papers which bring tidings of fortune, both good and bad. Leaves long lost to wind and weather now lie buried like brush marks which I have not yet been able to cajole into calligraphy. A faint sun lingers overhead like the echo of a far-off temple bell, and ice spreads over the pond like a Noh player’s mask.

origami days
a red-crowned crane
unfolding in flight

Listen:  do you hear the forest speaking through the hollow of the owl, the saw-sound of the raven, the rasp of the wren? By hearth’s light, I put ink to paper the way a koi swirls before surfacing, just as I imagine the movement of your pen spreading apple-roots across the page. At the foot of the mountain, in my small hut, I turn my face to the moon, white as a chrysanthemum, and wonder what poem you are dreaming of tonight in your woods so dark and deep. Across these centuries, in this one world, and at this quiet hour, I send you this letter to wish you well and to say that I, too, often stop on my way home to hear horse bells jingling in the cold.

fallen blossoms. . .
where distant neighbors meet
to mend the wall

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About the Author

Keith Polette lives in El Paso, Texas. He is the author of a book of haiku, The New World, and a book of haibun, Pilgrimage, both published by Red Moon Press.