English Original
winter afternoon
not one branch moves --
I listen to my bones
Haiku Studio, 1991
Patricia Donegan
Chinese Translation (Traditional)
冬天下午
沒有一根樹枝在移動
傾聽我的骨頭聲音
Chinese Translation (Simplified)
冬天下午
没有一根树枝在移动
倾听我的骨头声音
Bio Sketch
Patricia Donegan (1945 -- 2023) led a life of creative exploration, meditation, writing, translating and teaching haiku, and teaching haiku. Three of her most famous books of haiku Love Haiku: Japanese Poems of Yearning, Passion & Remembrance (co-translated with Yoshie Ishibashi), Haiku Mind: 108 Poems to Cultivate Awareness and Open Your Heart, and Chiyo-ni Woman Haiku Master (co-translated with Yoshie Ishibashi). In 2017 she was named the honorary curator of the American Haiku Archives.
Ls 1&2 set the scene while unexpeced L3 seems to establish an implied simile between bare branches and an old person's brittle bones.
ReplyDeleteAn understated, evocative mood haiku about aging.
And it might be interesting to do a thematic comparison reading of my haiku below:
bone white moon
the smell of this winter night
without food
Shot Glass Journal, 25, 2018