Parents, Children...
found mushrooms
only to hide them
from the others
that hog we secretly kept,
gee, it ran like hell!
in the ditch
facing the pilot
with shock
scattered
over foreign houses:
parents, children...
at some point they stopped
returning from captivity
now wasn't there
this school outing,
this bridge destroyed?
Mom's eyes softened when she conjured up memories at lunch, never noticing how we kept silent in that language still alien to her. Her memories popped in like dear friends and sat down at our table without further ado: the sales lady with her Hitler salute, the gentle teacher, the elder brother – beyond recognition he'd been. Later on they'd hide among the folds in our curtains, only to peer at us and into our mazy dreams. The War, that much I figured, had been some German business and quite as scary as that snarling dog in the evening hour.
Daddy never told us stories. Instead he combed our hair: the blond strands of my sister, my raven black head. Once, twice and later on anew.
touched
like that again
I'd understand
what stood between us
can't weigh me down
First published in
Chrysanthemum Haiku Journal, April 2007
Translated by Ingrid Kunschke
Market Day
For as long as I've been lining up at the Turkish deli stand, I haven't seen the old lady across the aisle serve customers. On a folding table she's arranged plastic baskets with plums, blueberries and green grapes. A zinc bucket with flowers is standing to her left. I spot some cosmos and a pretty weed. The woman weighs out the same pears time and again. A little while ago she flashed me a glance, to see if I might need anything, but I said no with a regretful smile.
Nobody's heading for the stall next to her either. Over there, in front of a van, cartons and wired baskets filled with eggs are placed on shelves supported by two timber trestles. A hunchbacked old dear keeps bustling about busily between the car and her display. To do so, she leans on the foremost shelf with her knuckles, making the eggs bop up and down whenever she swings aside a bit.
I have another olive. There! Someone's actually pushing his bike towards the fruit stall. He orders plums and gets four, five hand-picked grapes on top. –Why! The idea! But with their faint glow among the plums' purple velvet the old lady wins me over for good. Sei Shonagon's robes cross my mind and the shades of a worn out cabbage white. Next I find the cream-white semolina pudding glazed with cherries and their black sheen. And then without fail I'm reminded of my daughter's hair, sparking with sunlight.
still unaware
of losing her brows
my darling girl
skips a rope, kicks a ball,
comes in tired
First published in
Haibun Today, October 2008
Translated by Ingrid Kunschke
Air
This isn't some fancy sleight of hand, is it? The walls of the stuffy room I lurch across in my dream are falling apart in a whirl of tiny pieces. From now on I dream myself in an airy place, enclosed only by a few roller shades dangling from nowhere and representing a door and windows. The breeze passes through freely and makes their shadows dance. Farther and still farther they unroll, while the pattern of their fabric becomes ever richer. What was linen is now damask and brocade, now silk undulating lavishly like sleeves of Chinese princesses. No fabric would be precious enough to hint at this fresh air. I inhale it greedily and widen myself like the breezy room. Relieved I stop sweating at last.
At breakfast then the new heat record. And as usual two sandwiches with tea and two, one and two drags of the brown, purple and blue asthma-spray.
from abroad
a parcel maybe
with a fan:
the coolness I'd feel
unwrapping
First published in Haiku heute, September 2006
English in Haibun Today, October 2008
Translated by Ingrid Kunschke
Forget-me-nots
I've discovered something that makes it easier for me to run my errands on busy Saturdays: of late there's been a flower lady in a deep doorway between the upper and lower city. Her eyes are the color of water. Her skin is translucent, her hair, a bob, almost white. She doesn't need a stall; she's only got this one bunch of flowers anyway. Coming from above, you won't notice her, neither from below – she's standing too far in the niche. That's why I walk slowly uphill across the marketplace until, in her shy way, she moves closer at last. Without a word she then shows me her flowers. Just for a moment though, so that I won't try to take them.
blue flowers
tied with a ribbon, softer
than a sigh –
without you blue hours
will never go by
So today it's a sighing little bunch. The last one, with the anemones, had been dreaming. At times the old lady weaves in some brighter flowers; even so her bouquets always remind me of bruises. She never talks. And I don't buy it; she's not standing by her post for such a petty sale. She just wants her flowers to be seen, and I come to catch a glimpse of them before immersing myself in the restless city.
First published in Haiku heute, September 2006
English in Haibun Today, September 2008
Translated by Ingrid Kunschke
One Step Aside
The grey bundle, that I struggle not to get jostled against, moves doggedly down the shopping mile. Just in time I manage to step aside, then, pushed by still other people, yet more at ease, I can let my gaze wander freely.
'World champion' the bundle reads, in type you'd expect to see on tea boxes. Underneath it to one side there's a worn-out traveling bag. For a moment I walk neck and neck with the man who lugs this burden and notice the yellow headband with the three black dots around his brow. He doesn't scan the pavement with his walking stick; he pokes at it, rather, with all his might. Sounds like the crack of a whip. And on I go with the crowd, past rubbish and sun glasses that I don't want, never wanted at all, but to stop and pause is what I want, to watch that child over there almost dancing for about three steps: a little Turkish boy.
Now I'm ahead of the blind man. 'Either!' he shouts. But that's all he was going to say, and even the racket of his stick is drowned in the hustle and bustle in front of a new shop.
Only at night
do the streets exhale:
they shuffle, squeak, stomp
and patter like
small wheels
tired feet
tender children
hobnailed boots
but who
will lend his ear
will keep his eye on it
First published in Haibun Today, October 2008
Translated by Ingrid Kunschke
Autumn
On the first day of summer, on the calendar's first day, my little girl fetched me a withered leaf.
"What about summer?" I read in her eyes.
Well, summer has come–she can wear her new dress–but while she runs across the orchard, assured of admiring glances, I hear autumn draw near in the high rustling grass. The morello cherry's twigs are no more now than fine strokes of the brush against the sky, with just a solid dark dot here and there where a fruit remains unpicked.
In the evening, when the light flows like honey, the last cherries are dipped in a warm glow. And the flock of pigeons flying low over me–even a single crow–carries in its feathers a hint of the radiance of these shorter days.
finally
having found myself
I clearly see
autumn's light here
is like fall's back home
First published in Vuursteen, Summer 2004
English in Haibun Today, October 2008
Translated by Ingrid Kunschke
Flotsam
It takes a while before some weeping reaches me in my sleep. My head leaning against my bag, I had dozed off on the beach, right in front of the Scheveningen Kurhaus. Now, little boots and wet socks lie in a mess all around me. Dazed, I straighten up.
Along the tidal line a black dog romps around, sniffing at everything the sea has washed ashore. And over there, yes, there I see my children, holding their father's hands as they run into the incoming waves. How pale their calves still are.
Next to me, three young women have settled. Two of them are lying in the sun and one is sitting with her back turned towards the sea. She has a beautiful face. Repeatedly, she scoops up sand and watches it glistening as she sprays it over her jeans. She laughs. I thought I heard somebody weep but it was, in fact, something about the way she laughed – I realize that now.
Intently I stare at my children. The sand covering the young woman's jeans must reach to her breast by now. With a quick move of her legs she'll make it sink in. Three, four times she must have piled it up like this, perfectly content in her world.
Her companions start stretching. Abruptly, they stop the rigid game and dust away the sand from the beauty's blouse.
"Wonder if she's hungry?" I hear.
"Ice cream," she says, in a flat voice.
like blades
of marram grass in the dunes
it hurts
to touch on memories
of my child's sad games
First published in
World Haiku Review 2005
Translated by Ingrid Kunschke and Kilmeny Niland
Last update 31.01.2010