mienu me-no hou-no megane-no tama-mo fuku

       blind in one eye

       the eyeglass lens on that side too

       i wipe

       --

       Sojo Hino (1901-1956). From "Jinsei no Gogo" (The afternoon of life) by Sojo Hino, 1953.

       Hino lost the sight in one of his eyes due to glaucoma late in life. The simple act of wiping the lenses of one's spectacles clean is full of pathos in the above haiku. Note that there are no words included that try to manipulate the reader into feeling sorry for the poet. The scene is presented concretely in a manner-of-fact way without words like "lonely" or "sole" and is so much more powerful because of this.

       Selected, translated and commented on by Dhugal J. Lindsay

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