autumn evening
the neighbors' leaves
mingle with mine
Modern Haiku, 46:2, Summer 2015
Bob Lucky
Chinese Translation (Traditional)
秋天的夜晚
鄰居的落葉和我的
混在一起
Chinese Translation (Simplified)
秋天的夜晚
邻居的落叶和我的
混在一起
Bio Sketch
Bob Lucky is the author of the chapbook Ethiopian Time and the content editor at Contemporary Haibun Online. He lives in Saudi Arabia.
This shasaei (sketch from life) haiku is tightly structured with an emotional undercurrent (running through this symbolically rich, neighborly image of mingled leaves). Bob's haiku reminds me of the following understated autumn haiku by Basho:
ReplyDeleteDeep autumn —
my neighbor,
how does he live, I wonder
This is one of my favorite Basho poems. I love the self-reflective nature of autumn. How well do you know your neighbors? I have lived on the same street for over 20 years and only know the names of the people on either side of me. Yet we only meet occasionally to chat. We never eat together or share family joy. So like Basho, I wonder how they live. I read somewhere that people today may be closer to people who live a thousand miles away then they are to the people next door. The internet connects across the miles, but we don't connect with those close by. What do you think? Are you close to your neighbors... excerpted from Harley King's commentary, accessed at https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/398615-reading-of-the-essential-haiku