a dewdrop
glistens on a leaf --
our son
takes his first
and only breath
Cattails, October 2017
Marilyn Humbert
Chinese Translation (Traditional)
一顆露珠
在一片葉子上閃閃發光 --
我們的兒子
呼了他的第一口
和唯一的一口氣
Chinese Translation (Simplified)
一颗露珠
在一片叶子上闪闪发光 --
我们的儿子
呼了他的第一口
和唯一的一口气
Bio Sketch
Marilyn Humbert lives in the Northern suburbs of Sydney NSW Australia. Her tanka and haiku appear in international and Australian journals, anthologies and online. Some of her free verse poems have been awarded prizes in competitions and some have been published.
This beautiful yet fragile, symbolically rich image of "a dewdrop/glisten[ing] on a leaf effectively enhances the focus, thematic and emotional, of the poignant statement in Ls 3-5.
ReplyDeleteMarilyn's heart-wrenching tanka reminds me of the following haiku by Issa:
This dewdrop world
Is but a dewdrop world
And yet—
According to David G. Lanoue, "this haiku was written on the one-year anniversary of the death of Issa's firstborn child, the boy Sentarô. It has a one-word prescript: 'Grieving.' According to Buddhist teaching, life is as fleeting as a dewdrop and so one should not grow attached to the things of this world. Issa's response: 'and yet...'"
-- excerpted from "A Dewdrop World," accessed at https://mudandlotus.blogspot.com/2010/01/dewdrop-world.html