3 AM
on the warm rock
above the lake
tales of time past
in the whisper of wavelets
Kokako, 21, September 2014
Ignatius Fay
Chinese Translation (Traditional)
凌晨三點
坐在湖泊上方
的溫暖岩石
小小波浪用耳語
訴說過去的故事
Chinese Translation (Simplified)
凌晨叁点
坐在湖泊上方
的温暖岩石
小小波浪用耳语
诉说过去的故事
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.
Through well-chosen evocative phrases (3 am, warm rock, tales of time past, and whisper of the wavelets), Ignatius effectively conveys the speaker's state of mood/mind in an un-Fitzgeraldian way:
ReplyDeletein a real dark night of the soul
it is always three o’clock in the morning,
day after day.
― F. Scott Fitzgerald, "The Crack-Up "
Note: Now the standard cure for one who is sunk is to consider those in actual destitution or physical suffering—this is an all-weather beatitude for gloom in general and fairly salutary day-time advice for everyone. But at three o’clock in the morning, a forgotten package has the same tragic importance as a death sentence, and the cure doesn’t work—and in a real dark night of the soul it is always three o’clock in the morning, day after day.
― F. Scott Fitzgerald, "The Crack-Up "