An unusual posting for me. I wrote this haiku, or haibun, I suppose, in Spanish while in Mexico, and translated it into English. Among other things, I got a new insight into translation. It’s no easier just because you wrote the original.
Fuera de la madrugada
salta el sol
corazón palpitante
Out of the darkness
leaps the sun
like a beating heart
A cool breeze
August, exhausted,
has surrendered
Another bride, another June, another sunny honeymoon
Another season, another reason for makin’ whoopee
~Cole Porter
It’s hot. The folding metal chairs
we sit on could at least make toast,
if not fry eggs.
We offer up our copious sweat
to the new, pulled into being
amidst the passing of the old.
The bride and groom trip happily
through their vows, and voila!
Two become one; the groom kisses the bride.
Later, at the Cutting of the Cake,
the inexhaustible cameras re-appear.
“No more kissing,” says the lip-weary bride.
He kisses her anyway, for good measure.
No one mentions dying.
We go home, fat and content.
March
wringing warmth
from the sky
In winter, the stars
Can suck the light
Right out of the sky.
It must have been like that
The night I was born
In the camp,
Although I had no clue
About that kind of thing.
My brothers, already ancient
Thought the bombed-out
Staircases, leading only up
And nowhere else,
Were built that way on purpose,
For them to play on,
And inevitably jump or fall,
Gravity victorious after all.
Children can’t be disappointed,
Having expected nothing.
Children think hunger
Is normal, pain is life,
And deprivation obvious.
Mothers aren’t like that.
They only wish their children
Could long for something.
exiles child 