Yosa Buson wrote the haiku commonly translated as “The temple bell stops—but the sound keeps coming out of the flowers.” The poem is admired for transforming an ending sound into a lingering visual and emotional impression.
Buson lived from 1716 to 1784 and was both a haiku poet and a highly accomplished painter. His poetry is often praised for its vivid, carefully composed imagery, and this verse shows that visual sensibility. The bell’s physical sound has stopped, yet the flowers seem to preserve or release its echo through the imagination of the listener.
The poem is not describing a literal acoustic phenomenon. It uses synesthesia—the blending of sensory impressions—to make sound appear in a field of flowers. The effect also reflects a central haiku technique: a brief observation opens into a larger moment of perception, without explaining the emotion directly.
Buson is sometimes confused with Matsuo Bashō because both are canonical haiku masters. Bashō is strongly associated with travel writing and contemplative landscapes, while Buson is particularly associated with painterly detail. English translations differ in wording, including whether the bell “stops,” “ceases,” or “rests,” but the attribution is to Buson.