A Cool Fall Night

A Cool Fall Night - context Summary

Composed While Preparing Dinner

Basho's haiku A Cool Fall Night (1691), published in Sarumino, was composed while preparing a meal. The poem compresses an ordinary kitchen scene, peeling eggplants and cucumbers on a cool autumn evening, into a moment of quiet attention. It exemplifies Basho's later karumi (lightness) aesthetic, seeking poetic depth in mundane, everyday actions and suggesting seasonal atmosphere through ordinary domestic detail and a restrained tone.