Coolness of the Melons

Coolness of the Melons - context Summary

Composed in Basho's Final Year

This haiku, written in 1694 and published posthumously in 1698 in Zoku Sarumino, was composed on a summer morning during Basho’s final year. It exemplifies his karumi, or lightness, aiming to capture an ordinary sensory moment—the coolness of melons flecked with mud and morning dew. The poem reflects Basho’s late style of finding depth in simple scenes and attending to transience through precise, compressed imagery.