World Haiku Series 2021 (81) Haiku by Donna Bauerly

red-tailed hawk  
soaring thermals   
to the sun's halo   

アカオノスリ
急上昇するサーマル
太陽の光輪に
  
late evening walk  
houses turning themselves  
inside out  

夜遅くの散歩
家々がぐるぐる回る
裏返しに
  
following the hearse
as far
as I can go 

霊柩車について行く
遠くまで
できるだけ
  
pear petals clinging 
to the edge 
of the spade  

梨の花びらがしがみつく
端に
鋤の
  
path to my dogs' graves mulch deep with memory  

私の犬の墓への道 思い出の深い根のおおい
  
feral cat  
the cardinal’s last song  
caught in your throat  

野良猫
枢機卿の最後の歌
喉に引っかかった
 
shelves filled with Verdi  
Beethoven, Bach—I listen  
to one small sparrow  

いっぱいの棚 ヴェルディ
ベートーベン、バッハで 私は耳を澄ます
一羽の小さなスズメに
  
just a little 
depression 
where you once lay 

ほんの少し
憂うつ
あなたがかつて横になっていたところ
  
watching the lights go out  
one red maple         
after another   

ライトが消えるのを見る
一枚の赤いカエデ
次々と                          
 
backwater fog  
drifting into  
the shadow ahead   

停滞した霧
漂って
前方の影に

― Translated into Japanese by Hidenori Hiruta

Brief Bio:

Donna Bauerly (born August 30, 1934, Potosi, Wisconsin), now residing in Dubuque, IA, taught for 52 years at various levels, the last 36 as a professor of literature and writing at Loras College, Dubuque, Iowa, and following retirement, as a volunteer 5th grade teacher.

Bauerly’s haiku have been published in the Haiku Society of America members’ anthologies and in journals including Frogpond and Wind Chimes; she was especially active in the Shiki Internet Kukai.

She produced a biography of the pioneering American haijin, Raymond Roseliep, Man of Art Who Loves the Rose (2015), believed to be the first book-length treatment of an English-language haiku poet. 

The Roseliep biography was researched and written over the span of 13 years.  

Chapter headings indicate the highlights of Roseliep’s life: Son, Scholar, Priest, Poet, Haijin, Sensei, Raymundo (Letters), Sobi-Shi (chosen Japanese name in collaboration with his Japanese friend, Nobuo Hirasawa).  

This last chapter, the Epilogue, details the conundrum of Roseliep’s life, “Just who is Roseliep, this “Man of Art Who Loves the Rose. 

― Presented by Jim Kacian, publisher of the biography

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