Basho died while visiting friends in Osaka. He wrote:
Taken ill on a journey,
my dreams wander
over withered moors.
Aitken Roshi, in The River of Heaven, suggests this was not Basho’s death poem. Apparently, when asked for a death poem, Basho said:
From old times it has been customary to leave a death poem behind, and perhaps I should do the same. But every moment of life is the last; every poem is a death poem. Why then should I write one at this time? In these last hours, I have no poem.
What is your poem in this moment?