Open Curtains

Leaf 374 – Reflections

 

Andrew Wyeth - Wind from the Sea (1947)

Last year I had the real pleasure, not only of seeing two of my haiku published in ‘Chrysanthemum,’ but also of seeing them translated into German by the editor, Beate Conrad. I’ve only once before seen my haiku translated, and that was way back in the very early days of the internet, when I happened to stumble across one of my haiku which had been translated into Russian. Unfortunately, I’ve long since lost my record of which poem it was and who had translated it. I suspect it was most likely one of my early poems published in ‘still: a journal of short verse.’ It is always interesting to see your words and thoughts translated into another language by someone else, just as it is when attempting to translate one’s own works, or even trying to write them in a different language to our mother tongue.

 

 

Curtains

breathing

in and out.

 

 

***

 

 

Vorhänge

atmen

ein und aus.

(translated by Beate Conrad) 

 

 

 

 

Paul Klee - Fensterausblick, Nordseeinsel (1923)

This haiku was originally published in Chrysanthemum, No. 35 (October, 2025), p. 29