Kobayashi Issa: Toad haiku

The toad! It looks like
it could belch
a cloud.


Tr. Robert Hass. For some reason I wrongly imagined Issa (1763-1828) wasn't well known outside Japan. Turns out pretty much all his 10,000-plus haiku have been translated into English, some by many hands, and you can even subscribe to a daily Issa haiku service. Not all the haiku are as funny as this one.