Basho one of the greatest of Japanese poets and the master of haiku was also a Buddhist monk and a life-long traveller. His poems combine 'karumi' or lightness of touch with the Zen ideal of oneness with creation. Each poem evokes the natural world - the cherry blossom the leaping frog the summer moon or the winter snow - suggesting the smallness of human life in comparison to the vastness and drama of nature. Basho himself enjoyed solitude and a life free from possessions and his haiku are the work of an observant eye and a meditative mind uncluttered by materialism and alive to the beauty of the world around him.