A quiet movement

There's a haiku I've been looking for but haven't been able to find. That is, until I started getting things ready for the movers. There it was in my Modern Japanese Literature binder from the fall of 1998. It's from Masaoka Shiki's (1867-1902) Thirty-Nine Haiku:

A stray cat
shits in my
winter garden

You'll notice that it doesn't have the typical 5-7-5 syllable count--that's because it's in translation. I like it because I like cats. But I also like it because it evokes a kind of serenity that I often feel when I look out at a fresh snow during wintertime. A cat is simply doing it's business in the quiet of a cold winter landscape. Everything seems hushed and peaceful, even though the cat is defecating.