in my homeland
a friend is amused
by my accent
a strange place to be
neither here, nor there
Eucalypt, 20, 2016
Samantha Sirimanne Hyde
Chinese Translation (Traditional)
回到家鄉
一個朋友覺得我的口音
很有趣
這是一個奇怪的地方
我不屬於這裡，也不屬於那裡
Chinese Translation (Simplified)
回到家乡
一个朋友觉得我的口音
很有趣
这是一个奇怪的地方
我不属於这里，也不属於那里
Bio Sketch
Samantha
Sirimanne Hyde was born in Sri Lanka and now lives in Australia. She
enjoys dabbling in short fiction, free verse, haiku, tanka and other
Japanese poetry forms.
Samantha's heartfelt tanka shows a poignant glimpse of diasporic life: the speaker's is alienated in a double sense -- from his/her homeland and from his/her adopted country.
ReplyDeleteThis tanka reminds me of one of my published tanka on the same topic written from a different angle:
everyone I meet
speaks with a funny accent...
in dreams
I return to my hometown
an ocean away
Lynx, 27:1, February, 2012