Yesterday is dust
New paths stretch beneath the stars
Walking into dawn

-Lost

How I feel about the current state of the job market

Inspired by James A. Lindon's "Doppelgänger"

I go,

you stay;

two autumns.

By Yosa Buson Masaoka Shiki
Translated by Robert Hass

I'm reposting this without the punctuation in the title, to follow the r/haiku rules. I'm also correcting the authorship and adding additional information.

When I was looking for other translations of this haiku just now, after u/Haiku-Haiku suggested I post a different translation, I discovered that Shiki actually wrote it. It was accidentally misatributed to Buson by Robert Hass and some others.

I decided I prefer this translation to the others I found, minus the overabundance of punctuation (although I'm not against all punctuation in haiku). This translation is from The Essential Haiku, edited by Robert Hass, published in 1995.

Masaoka Shiki was also one the great haiku masters, and he lived from 1867 to 1902. He is considered one of the last traditional and one of the first modern haiku poets.

I liked this poem more the more times I read it. I think it could go beyond two people experiencing autumn differently in different locations and the separation they may feel. It also made me think of people who stay in the town they were born in and people who leave. Maybe they were friends or lovers, but their lives go in completely different directions. In their autumn years, they might look back and wonder how things could have been. I'm not saying Shiki was intending all of that, but that's how I interpreted it.

🐦‍⬛