was an evocation of wabi. An idea often linked to sabi, and equally important to Bashō’s work, wabi conveys the beauty of the most ordinary circumstances and objects. A hemp farmer’s jacket, a plain fired-clay cup, the steam rising from a boiling teapot— these are wabi’s essence. A gold-and-cloisonné bowl or ornate silk clothes are its opposite. In the spirit of wabi, then, this poem mulls the deep satisfaction of a life stripped almost bare.
