Here is my loose translation of an autumn hokku by Kikaku, in daoku form.
The autumn moon;
Across the floor —
The shadow of the pine.
Literally, in Japanese it is:
Meigetsu ya tatami no ue ni matsu no kage
名 月 や 畳 の 上 に 松 の 影
Bright moon ya tatami ‘s on at pine ‘s shadow
The meigetsu is the bright or autumn moon — the harvest moon.
Tatami is the woven grass floor covering used in old Japan.
We could make it a big more rustic and rural Western:
The autumn moon.
Across the wooden floor —
The shadow of the pine.
It has a better flow to it, and a wooden floor is certainly more natural than linoleum.
We could also change it a bit more, without going too far from the original:
Autumn moonlight;
A pine shadow
Across the floor.
As you can see, I am not just translating old hokku to be translating them, but want to show you how to write hokku in English — in this case a daoku, or objective hokku. If hokku is not to die out, there must be those who value it and continue to write it.
David