English Original
on the way up
to the mountain hut
the Zen farmer
crushes
a tangerine pest
At the Hut of the Small Mind, 1992
Sanford Goldstein
Chinese Translation (Traditional)
攀登小路
到山間小屋
一名禪宗農民
踩碎了
一隻橘子害蟲
Chinese Translation (Simplified)
攀登小路
到山间小屋
一名禅宗农民
踩碎了
一只橘子害虫
Bio Sketch
on the way up
to the mountain hut
the Zen farmer
crushes
a tangerine pest
At the Hut of the Small Mind, 1992
Sanford Goldstein
Chinese Translation (Traditional)
攀登小路
到山間小屋
一名禪宗農民
踩碎了
一隻橘子害蟲
Chinese Translation (Simplified)
攀登小路
到山间小屋
一名禅宗农民
踩碎了
一只橘子害虫
Bio Sketch
Sanford
Goldstein has been publishing tanka for more than fifty years. He was
born in 1925 and is now 95 years old. Long ago, he wrote haiku, but
decided to focus on tanka. His latest books, three in the last two
years, have each said this would be his last.
Sanford's tanka effectively builds, poetic phrase/line by poetic phrase/line, to an unexpected yet thematically provocative, and intellectually and emotionally challenging ending: brutally ending a life/killing by the "Zen" farmer.
ReplyDeleteAnother reading of this "Zen" farmer tanka: treating this tanka as a koan (a paradoxical anecdote or riddle).
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