the summer grass
is all that remains
of a soldiers’s dreamthe summer grass
the splendid dreams
of Samurai warriors夏草や 兵どもが 夢の跡
Natsukusa ya/ Tsuwamono domo ga/ Yume no ato
Matsuo Basho, Oku no Hosomichi, 1689
Note. Basho uses Tsuwamono (兵), an old term for a soldier and not Bushi, 武士, samurai warrior.
Ukraine, February 2022
As I write this, Russian military forces are invading the Ukraine. Vladimir Putin who ordered the invasion has bemoaned the collapse of the Soviet Union as the demise of “historical” Russia and dreams of returning the Ukraine to Russian rule.
matsuo-basho-haiku 