It’s a city with storybook appeal: clock towers and onion dome steeples, cobblestones, a fortress, rows of colorful little buildings. A local tour guide points out various structures in the near distance.

the gray house
across the Inn River
where Hitler
lived as a small child
...when he almost drowned

Author’s Note: Information regarding “when he almost drowned” can be found in the book Out of Passau: Leaving a City Hitler Called Home (Anna Elisabeth Rosmus, University of South Carolina Press, Columbia, SC, 2004) as well as in miscellaneous articles.

—Previously published in Haibun Today (Volume 8, Number 1, March 2014); republished here by author’s permission

Janet Lynn Davis

lives with her husband in a quiet community carved out of the woods to the north of Houston, Texas. Since childhood, she’s had a strong interest in the written word as both art form and means of communication. Her college major and career revolved around words.

Janet’s tanka and other poems have appeared in numerous journals, anthologies, and other venues over the past several years, including recently in All the Shells, Eucalypt, Skylark, Haibun Today, and Three Minus One (a book of essays, poems, and artwork about stillbirth, miscarriage, and neonatal loss). She currently serves as vice president of the Tanka Society of America.

Janet’s blog: twigs&stones