English Original
battle zone
from the mass grave
hints of green
Haiku Canada Review, 16:2, 2022
George Swede
Chinese Translation (Traditional)
戰區
萬人坑中
綠草的跡象
Chinese Translation (Simplified)
战区
万人坑中
绿草的迹象
Bio Sketch
George Swede's most recent collections of haiku are Almost Unseen (Decatur, IL: Brooks Books, 2000), Joy In Me Still (Edmonton: Inkling Press, 2010) and micro haiku: three to nine syllables (Inspress, 2014). He is a former editor of Frogpond: Journal of the Haiku Society of America (2008-2012) and a former Honorary Curator of the American Haiku Archives (2008-2009).
The contrasts (fighting vs growing; living vs dead; humans vs patches of grass ...) between the two parts of this war haiku are visually and emotionally pignant and thought-provoking.
ReplyDeleteThis poem could work as the concluding haiku of the following haiku sequence:
evening news:
another mass grave
weather forecast
33rd A-Bomb Day Memorial Haiku Meeting, Kyoto, 1999
Djurdja Vukelić-Rožić
a Ukrainian's stare ...
his shadow slips
into a mass grave
NeverEnding Story, April 5, 2022
Chen-ou Liu
FYI: The "Ukrainian's stare" haiku is the last haiku of my haiku sequence, "Russian Withdrawal from Bucha:"
a row of houses
piled into rubble
smokey twilight
trees blackened
by a cloud of ravens
blood-stained doll
a Ukrainian's stare ...
his shadow slips
into a mass grave