春暁のことば鉛筆書きにして　　脇本浩子

shungyô no kotoba enpitsugaki ni shite

            spring dawn

            I write a message

            with a pencil

                                                Hiroko Wakimoto

from ‘Haidan,’ (‘Haiku Stage’) a monthly haiku magazine, May 2017 Issue, Honami Shoten, Tokyo

Fay’s Note:   A literal translation of ‘kotoba’ in original Japanese is ‘word(s)’.  Because it is written in hiragana, I imagined, as a translator and a reader, the words the poet wrote down could be for someone younger than a 1^st or 2^nd grader.