five years old
emotionless
my sister
stays precisely two steps
behind our step-mother
Ignatius Fay
Chinese Translation (Traditional)
五歲大
面無表情
我的妹妹
站在我們的繼母
兩步之後
Chinese Translation (Simplified)
五岁大
面无表情
我的妹妹
站在我们的继母
两步之後
Bio sketch
Ignatius Fay is a retired invertebrate paleontologist. His poems have appeared in many of the most respected online and print journals, including The Heron’s Nest, Modern Haiku, Ars Poetica, Gusts, Chrysanthemum and Eucalypt. Books: Breccia (2012), a collaboration with fellow haiku poet, Irene Golas; Points In Between (2011), an anecdotal history of his first 23 years. He is the new editor of the Haiku Society of America Bulletin. Ignatius resides in Sudbury, Ontario, Canada.
In his well-crafted relationship tanka, Ignatius give readers an emotionally appealing character sketch (of the five-year-old sister who has a strong personality revealed in his word choices: "emotionless" and "precisely")
ReplyDeleteThematically speaking, what's left unsaid is more important than what's said. As time passes by, will the distance ("precisely two steps") between sister and step-mother will be shortened?