Kasa mo naki
Ware wo shigururu ka
Nanto nantol
—Basho
With no bamboo hat
Does the drizzle fall on me?
What care I of that ?
The last line of this haiku might also be freely and colloquially
rendered, “ I don’t give a dam.” Note that in the original Japanese of this haiku there are eight syllables in the second line and
six in the third line, a total of nineteen syllables for the whole
poem, instead of the usual seventeen. Great masters sometimes
depart from hard and fast rules.
The poet’s indifference to rain is a lesson to others to accept unpleasant conditions and experiences philosophically. Too many
people let the weather influence their attitudes and actions towards
others.