English Original
hurricane
the taste of rain
from a barrel
Third Prize, 2007 Porad haiku Award
Ernest J. Berry
Chinese Translation (Traditional)
颶風
從一個水桶中舀起
的雨的味道
Chinese Translation (Simplified)
飓风
从一个水桶中舀起
的雨的味道
Bio Sketch
Ernest J. Berry was born in 1929 in Christchurch, New Zealand. After a decade of shepherding, he spent several years in business before retiring to a beach in Mexico where he rediscovered his boyhood love of poetry. He un-retired in 1993 and settled in Picton. After founding Picton Poets in 1994, he started teaching haiku in workshops, secondary schools and haiku meetings. Two of his haiku books were honoured with Merit Book Awards from The Haiku Society of America.
L1 sets the stage for a wide and rich range of emotions, including dread at the thought of one's house taking the brunt of a hurricane's winds or being damaged beyond repair by fast-moving floodwater, or even worse, of one's loved ones being injured. Then, just as these worries take over the periphery of the reader's thoughts, Ls 2&3, show something seemingly trivial, something that the narrator may taste everyday, but which today has a different flavor, a bit of a metallic edge to it, that the narrator hasn't sensed before.
ReplyDeleteWhat's left unsaid is at least as potent as what's said. This well-crafted haiku reminds me of the following remark by Bob Spiess: a multi-sensory haiku is likely a better haiku than others.