English Original
spring equinox
a crack splits
the frozen river
tinywords, 25:1, March 24, 2025
Dru Philippou
Chinese Translation (Traditional)
春分
冰封的河流裂開
一道裂縫
Chinese Translation (Simplified)
春分
冰封的河流裂开
一道裂缝
Bio Sketch
Dru Philippou lives in northern New Mexico, where hiking in the desert wilderness nourishes her spirit and her writing. Her haibun “Afterlife” won first place in the Haiku Society of America’s 2021 Haibun Awards. Also, her haibun “Pilgrimage” won first place in 2023 in the same contest. She is the author of A Place to Land, a tanka prose memoir.
L1, provides a traditional kigo (season word), grounding the haiku in a specific time of year, and the visual and auditory "crack" of ice in L2 separates the setting (equinox, L1) from the action (the river splitting, Ls 2&3). This successfully creates a "haiku moment" where the reader can feel the sudden shift from winter's stillness to spring's movement.
ReplyDeleteThis multi-sensorily effective haiku captures change not as a gradual thaw, but as a sharp, irreversible rupture—brief, physical, and deeply felt.