moonlight
upon the water --
why do we
give ourselves over to
beautiful illusions?
Selected Tanka, GUSTS, 15, Spring/Summer 2012
Joyce Wong
Chinese Translation (Traditional)
月光
在水面上 --
為什麼我們
將自己交付給
美麗的幻想？
Chinese Translation (Simplified)
月光
在水面上 --
为什麽我们
将自己交付给
美丽的幻想？
Bio Sketch
Joyce Wong is a quiet artistic soul who loves reading, writing, music, and poetry. She began writing tanka in 2010, inspired by Machi Tawara’s Salad Anniversary. Her tanka have been published in GUSTS, Moonbathing, and Take Five: Best Contemporary Tanka, Volume 4. One of her tanka was honored with a Certificate of Merit from the Japan Tanka Poets' Society in the 7th International Tanka Festival Competition, 2012. She lives in Vancouver, BC, Canada.
Joyce’s effective use of a rhetorical question emotionally enhances the suggestive power of the poem, especially of the upper verse, which alludes to a Chinese idiom: “flowers in the mirror and the moon on the water (Chinese: 鏡花水月; Japanese: Kyōka Suigetsu)”
ReplyDeleteIt reminds me of Jenny`s tanka below, which employs the same image to achieve different effects, thematic and emotional;
the self
I’ve clung to
all these years
moonlight
on water
Skylark, 1:1, summer 2013