autumn waves—
I dream my mother’s death
over and over

between the war graves
a shallow expanse
of snowmelt

graduation day—
rising in the wind
the seed tufts

all these years
like a cosmic umbrella
my childhood friend

dead of summer
disappearing in the night
a lighthouse signal

hidden birdsong ...
a music with
no silence in it

spelling her name ...
I catch the sunlight
through the clouds

Goran Gatalica

was born in Virovitica, Croatia, in 1982 and currently resides in Zagreb, Croatia. He holds physics and chemistry degrees from the University of Zagreb and proceeded directly to a PhD program after graduation. He has worked at the Institute of Physics, Institute Ruđer Bošković, and as assistant for Physics 1 and 2 courses on the Faculty of Chemical Engineering and Technology, University of Zagreb.

Gatalica is a member of the Croatian Writers’ Association, and his poetry, haiku, and prose are published in numerous venues, including: A Hundred Gourds, Acorn, Akitsu Quarterly, Allegro Poetry Magazine, Atlas Poetica, the Aurorean, Autumn Moon Haiku Journal, Better Than Starbucks, cattails, the cherita, Chrysanthemum, The Cicada’s Cry, Creatrix, Daily Haiga, Failed Haiku, Frameless Sky, Frogpond, Gnarled Oak, Haikuniverse, hedgerow, The Heron’s Nest, Lilliput Review, The Mamba Journal, Modern Haiku, Presence, Revija Apokalipsa, Shot Glass Journal, Skylark: A Tanka Journal, Under the Bashō, Wales Haiku Journal, Wild Plum, and World Haiku Review, among others.

His writing also appears in The Asahi Shimbun (newspaper) and The Mainichi (news website), and has been anthologized in: Atoms of Haiku Volume III: A Haiku Collection by Authors United (2018); Beyond the Grave: Contemporary Afterlife Haiku (ed. Robert Epstein, 2015); Haiku e Orchidee spontanei all’Elba (Associazione Culturale Versanti Poetici, 2015); and Haiku: A Concise Anthology (ed. Santosh Kumar, 2018), among others.

For a list of Gatalica’s awards, please see his Poet Profile at The Haiku Foundation.