Haiku and photos by Mayumi Kawaharada

Winter


Interminable queues
of displaced people—                                                
blizzard-ridden road                                                      
 
Mother and baby                                                        
carried off by the attacks—                                       
trampled winter roses                                                  
 
 War turns gentle siblings                             
into crazed soldiers—                                  
a frozen battlefield                                                    
 
 Soldiers loot,                                                              
for their loved ones…                                                
furious snowstorm                                                       
 
A doll in red                                                                
on a muddy snowmelt road —                            
immobilized tanks                                                         
 
Raging winter rain                                                      
to the ashen landscape—                            
endless tears                                                               
 
Evacuees’ singing                                               
echoes through the frozen air—                  
the Snow Queen’s “Let it go” 

Spring

 
The spring sun   
to both Ukraine and Russia—
more tears, more sorrows
 
Even plant buds　　　　　　　　　　　　　
have been scorched—                                        
silent devastation                                                      
 
Spring rain—                                                 　　　
the shattered dreams of                              
a young soldier                                             
 
New grass time and again                  
trampled down—                           
yet still it keeps growing                
 
Sunflower seeds                                  
sown in a battlefield—                                      
longing for summer          
 
 
And… again, winter

Soldiers’ mums
stand against the Ukraine war—
winter comes again
 
Chess pieces
Scattered on a snowy road—
the battles continue
 
New Year’s greetings
from the battlefield…
smiles and tears
 
On a New Year ’s Day—
a white pigeon takes off
towards a rainbow