Haiku by Radhika De Silva (Sri Lanka)
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seniors’ walk
a snail crawls
down the wall
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ゆるやかなシニアの歩き蝸牛
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HAIKU to Akita’s “Haiku Beyond Earth”
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winter art workshop
for seniors
abstract strokes
シニア向けワークショップの冬アート抽象的なストロークなり
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son’s first day
at school
broken cocoon
入学の息子の初日学校で壊れし繭の如くなりけり
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night-bloomer
white beads
on her black dress
夜咲きの白いビーズの模様柄彼女のドレス黒色に白
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a snake
sheds its skin
her second marriage
脱皮する蛇の如くに再婚す
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crushed picture
of a beauty
mum’s wrinkles
砕かれし美人の写真母の皺
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seniors’ walk
a snail crawls
down the wall
ゆるやかなシニアの歩き蝸牛
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maid milking cow
calf’s head
in the pail
搾乳や子牛の頭桶の中
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departure terminal
travellers with no baggage
relaxed
(Sri Lankan Haiku Anthology, 2021)
ターミナル荷物と我が身別々に
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makeup washed off –
an actress examines herself
in the mirror
(Sri Lankan Haiku Anthology, 2021)
舞台果つ素顔見つめる女優かな
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forest monastery
entrants exit
through different gates
(Echoes of Silence, 2024)
修道院入口出口異なれり
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Note: Short Japanese Poetry of 17 phonetic Units of 5, 7, 5 Pattern
Inspired by ten English haiku by Radhika De Silva, Hidenori Hiruta translated them literally into ten Japanese short poems first of all.
As a result, seven interpretative Japanese poems of 5, 7, 5 pattern are added to the English haiku as above. They might be haiku（俳句）or senryū（川柳).
And three of the English haiku are interpreted into Japanese tanka （短歌）poems of 5,7,5,7,7 pattern.
This is because English is different from Japanese.
BIO:
Radhika De Silva is a senior academic from Sri Lanka.
She holds a PhD in Education related to Psycholinguistics from the University of Reading, UK.
Her haiku has been published in international journals and anthologies and she has won several awards at international haiku contests.
She is a member of the Sri Lankan haiku group led by poet Palitha Senarathna and several other international haiku groups.
She has translated an anthology of Sri Lankan haiku and a collection of haiku into English.
Her book “Echoes of Silence” is a bilingual collection of haiku and related forms in English and Sinhala, and is available for purchase at
Akita International Haiku Network 