English Original
biting cold —
a morse code alphabet
your breath
Shadow Pond, 6, December 23 2025
Maria Tosti
Chinese Translation (Traditional)
刺骨的寒冷—
你呼吸出
摩斯電碼字母表
Chinese Translation (Simplified)
刺骨的寒冷—
你呼吸出
摩斯电码字母表
Bio Sketch
Maria Tosti is an Italian author and artist from Perugia. She made her literary debut in 2014 with a multilingual poetry collection. Although she enjoys exploring various forms of poetry, she is particularly drawn to short poems and Japanese poetic forms. Her passion for photography, drawing, and painting also inspires her to create visual poetry.
This winter haiku is spare, evocative, and driven by a sharp moment of discovery.
ReplyDeleteL 1, “biting cold —," establishes an immediate physical sensation. The em-dash creates a sudden pause, mimicking a sharp, freezing intake of air.
L 2, “a morse code alphabet,” introduces an unexpected, intriguing metaphor. It transforms a mundane physical reaction into something mysterious, re-imagining a person's breath as a sequence of urgent signals.
Then, L 3, “your breath," grounds the poem back in the human body. It leaves the reader to visualize the fleeting, staccato patterns of condensation dissolving in the air.
The core strength of this haiku lies in the tension between Morse code—which represents structured communication, distance, and deliberate meaning—and a breath, which is ephemeral, involuntary, and deeply alive. By closing on the word "your," the poem drops a subtle, intimate hint of an unspoken message passing between the speaker and a companion in the cold.