This haiku started off as me workshopping a story idea to myself early Wednesday morning with myself. The first time I heard the story of Pandora, I didn’t like the idea of a world plagued by a curse. Of course, time goes by, and I’ve started to think beyond the idea of the box as a curse, rather an empowering story for women — my understanding was that men told Pandora not to open the box. Maybe opening the box was a good thing, and I’d like to write a short story about that.
For now, I wrote a haiku. Actually, I wrote two. The first English version came naturally to me, but with the Japanese translation, it was hard for me to accept counting the “n” in Pandora as a single syllable, so I wrote an alternative haiku with similar meaning and its own English version.
Shukufuku no Pandora, or Pandora’s Blessing
I was afraid of
Pandora’s box until I
understood its gifts
真実は
悪魔の箱に
贈り物
＊＊＊
Shinjitsu wa
Akuma no hako ni
Okurimono
＊＊＊
In reality,
Inside the devil’s box is
A gift — a blessing.
＊＊＊
Dearest Reverie 