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My Favorite Haiku

taifu semaru
hama ni ryoma no
futokorode

a typhoon bears down
on the beach stands Ryoma,
arms folded

- Kinoshita Michiteru

From The Haiku Handbook by William J Higginson:
"When a typhoon is coming people scurry about, tying down this, closing that, barring doors and windows. Michiteru sees, or envisions, one man who stands calmly, watching the approaching storm. The man seems like Sakamoto Ryoma, a hero of Shikoku [...] who helped lead a movement to reform the government toward the end of the feudal era in Japan. The poem may be taken as an allegory for Ryoma's calm in the face of increasing Western interest (the "typhoon") in "opening" Japan."