Vandaag scheen de lentezon op mijn gezicht 
maar in de kelders van Kiev daar zien ze geen licht. 
Gevangen in angst, niemand weet voor hoe lang 
geen carnavalsvreugde, maar bommen en bang. 
Is er morgen nog voedsel, staat mijn huis er nog wel 
in Kiev is het leven geworden tot hel. 
Ik wens dat het snel stopt, ook al is die kans klein 
en dat het in Kiev ook lente zal zijn. 

—by Simone Opdam

Kiev Lente (collaborative shahai: photograph + haiku) © 2022

Photograph © by Simone Opdam, and haiku © Gary S. Rosin.
All rights reserved. Artwork appears here with permission from both artists.

breekbare bloemen
tanks en tropen, geen bijen
steken in de lente

Today the sun of Spring shone on my face 
but in the shelters of Kiev they see no light. 
Caught in fear, no one knows for how long. 
No carnival joy, but bombs and bang. 
Will there still be food tomorrow, will my house still be there? 
In Kiev life has become hell. 
I wish it would stop soon, even if there is chance, 
and that it will be Spring in Kiev too. 

—by Simone Opdam

Kyiv Spring (collaborative shahai: photograph + haiku) © 2022

Photograph © by Simone Opdam, and haiku © Gary S. Rosin.
All rights reserved. Artwork appears here with permission from both artists.

fragile flowers
tanks and troops, not bees
sting in Spring

Publisher’s Note:

The photograph above by Simone Opdam, as well as the Dutch version of her poem, were posted to her Facebook gallery (SimoneoFotografie) on 26 February 2022, and appear here with her permission.

Simone Opdam

is a Dutch outdoor photographer. She loves to capture her home region, Waterland, preferably around sunrise, but also likes to travel abroad. Her favourite destination is Great Britain. She is also involved with various nature conservation groups and organizes small-scale photography workshops and photo tours.

Artist’s website: https://www.simoneo.com/

Gary S. Rosin’s

poetry and haiga have appeared, or are forthcoming, in various literary and poetry magazines such as Concho River Review, Eastern Structures, Failed Haiku, Harbinger Asylum, KYSO Flash, MacQueen’s Quinterly, Poetry24, The Legal Studies Forum, The Lift, The Wild Word, and Visions International; as well as in several anthologies, including contemporary haibun (Volume 17, Red Moon Press, 2022), Faery Footprints (Fae Corp Publishing), Lifting the Sky: Southwestern Haiku & Haiga (Dos Gatos Press), Texas Poetry Calendar (Kallisto Gaia Press), Untameable City: Poems on the Nature of Houston (Mutabilis Press), and elsewhere.

His poem “Viewing the Dead” was nominated for a Pushcart Prize. Two of his poems appear in Silent Waters, photographs by George Digalakis (Athens, 2017). He is the author of two chapbooks, Standing Inside the Web (Bear House Publishing, 1990) and Fire and Shadows (Legal Studies Forum, 2008) (offprint).

Selections of Gary’s poetry and photography can be found at his website, 4P Creations: http://4pcreations.com

More on the Web: By, About, and Beyond

⚡ Crossing Kansas by Gary S. Rosin in The Wild Word (7 February 2020); includes audio of the poet reading his poem

⚡ Two Readings: “Apparition” and “Black Dogs” by Gary S. Rosin for Texas Poetry Calendar 2015 at the Blue Willow Bookshop in Houston, Texas (20 September 2014)