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Magazine Parting Words

Under dark pines

By Saigyo

Winter 2021

Under dark pines
all is the color
of falling snow
the mountain path
already swathed in whiteness

♦

Saigyo (1118-1190) is one of Japan’s most prominent monk-poets. Born into a wealthy warrior family, he left a post in the imperial court in his early twenties for the Buddhist priesthood and the life of a pilgrim. A master of the waka verse form that preceded the haiku, Saigyo was acknowledged as a primary influence by the great 17th-century haiku poet Basho.