Sunday, November 10, 2019

One Man's Maple Moon: Mountain Road Tanka by Jane Reichhold

English Original

going higher
the mountain road disappears
into a cloud
I think of you as blossoms
scattered too soon

Ardea, 2, 2012

Jane Reichhold


Chinese Translation (Traditional)

山路盤旋而上
消失在雲裡
我想起你
像太快散落
的盛開鮮花 

Chinese Translation (Simplified)

山路盘旋而上
消失在云里
我想起你
像太快散落
的盛开鲜花


Bio Sketch

Jane Reichhold was born as Janet Styer in 1937 in Lima , Ohio , USA . She had published over thirty books of haiku, renga, tanka, and translations. Her latest tanka book, Taking Tanka Home was translated into Japanese by Aya Yuhki. Her most popular book is Basho The Complete Haiku by Kodansha International. As founder and editor of AHA Books, Jane also published Mirrors: International Haiku Forum, Geppo, for the Yuki Teikei Haiku Society, and she had co-edited with Werner Reichhold, Lynx for Linking Poets since 1992. Lynx went online in 2000 in AHApoetry.com the web site Jane started in 1995. Since 2006 she had maintained an online forum – AHAforum

2 comments:

  1. Jane's tanka, bookmarked by these two contrasting phrases, "going higher" and "scattered too soon," effectively builds poetic phrase (ku)/line by poetic phrase (ku)/line to a poignant ending that reveals the theme of loss and grief.

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  2. IMHO, the following tanka works well as a sequel to Jane's heart-wrenching poem:

    Why did you vanish
    into empty sky?
    Even the fragile snow,
    when it falls,
    falls in this world.

    Izumi Shikibu

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