A Cicada Shell

A Cicada Shell - context Summary

Basho's Late-period Meditation

A concise haiku arising from a simple observation of a cicada shell. Basho uses the empty shell as a stark emblem of impermanence: the insect's song has vanished though its shell remains. Composed in his late period, the poem reflects his Buddhist preoccupation with transience and the vanishing of self. There is no recorded occasion or date; the lines register a single, contemplative moment that points beyond nature to mortality and absence.