Otsuji wrote:

Spring rain;
Seen between the trees --
A path to the sea.

This is a light, gentle verse.   It has a feeling of coolness, but with less emphasis than we feel in this summer verse by Shiki, strongly contrasting the coolness with the heat of the season:

Coolness!
Through the hole of the stone lantern,
The sea.

Season is very important in how we perceive a verse, so it is crucial to know the season in which a verse was written.  That is why writers should mark each hokku with its appropriate season.

Copyright 2007
David Coomler