blue fairywren
lifting for a moment
a weight we carried
A Hundred Gourds, 2:2, March 2013
Simon Hanson
Chinese Translation (Traditional)
藍精靈鷯
起飛了一會兒
我們所承擔的包袱
Chinese Translation (Simplified)
蓝精灵鹩
起飞了一会儿
我们所承担的包袱
Bio Sketch
Simon
Hanson lives in country South Australia enjoying the open spaces and
nearby coastal environments. He is excited by the natural world and
relishes moments of the numinous in ordinary things. He is published in
various journals and anthologies and never realised how much the moon
meant to him until he started writing haiku.
On first reading, the reader might think Simon's haiku demonstrates a modern style of juxtaposition where a natural scene (in Ls 1&2) is contrasted with an "unrelated human thought" (in L3), one that the speaker is distracted by or obsessed with.
ReplyDeleteOn second reading (situated in the behavioral context of the fairywren), we can see that the juxtaposed L3 is an "organic human response" to the natural world, successfully turning this poem into a meditative haiku on human relationships.
In this haiku, Simon skillfully demonstrates his skill in employing a culturally specific yet symbolically rich image to deepen the meaning of/add psychological depth to the poem.
Note: The splendid fairywren (Malurus splendens), also known simply as the splendid wren or more colloquially in Western Australia as the blue wren, is a passerine bird of the Maluridae family. It is found across much of the Australian continent from central-western New South Wales and southwestern Queensland over to coastal Western Australia....
Like other fairywrens, the splendid fairywren is notable for several peculiar behavioural characteristics; "birds are socially monogamous and sexually promiscuous," meaning that although they form pairs between one male and one female, each partner will mate with other individuals and even assist in raising the young from such trysts. Male wrens pluck pink or purple petals and display them to females as part of a courtship display...
-- excerpted from the Wikipedia entry, Splendid Fairywren