spring afternoon
white petals keep falling
in haste
I still cannot decide
to fall in love again
Moonbathing, 10, Spring/Summer 2014
Kozue Uzawa
Chinese Translation (Traditional)
春天的下午
白色的花瓣匆忙地
不斷飄落
我仍然不能決定
再次墜入愛河
Chinese Translation (Simplified)
春天的下午
白色的花瓣匆忙地
不断飘落
我仍然不能决定
再次坠入爱河
Bio Sketch
Kozue Uzawa is a retired university professor. She works as editor of the English tanka journal GUSTS. She composes tanka both in Japanese and English. She also translates Japanese tanka into English and co-published Ferris Wheel: 101 Modern and Contemporary Tanka (Boston: Cheng & Tsui, 2006), and Kaleidoscope: Selected Tanka of Shuji Terayama
(Tokyo: Hokuseido Press, 2008). Ferris Wheel received the 2007 Donald
Keene Translation Award for Japanese Literature from Columbia
University.
Enhanced by the effective pivot, "in haste," the jux. of falling white petals and one's incapability of falling in love again is visually and emotionally poignant. And the pivot going with the upper verse or lower verse gives a different reason behind the speaker's incapability of falling in love again, thus revealing his/her personality.
ReplyDeleteThis is a fine example of using a pivot that adds a richness to each part of a bipartite tanka as well as revealing their connection.
For further discussion about "pivot," see my "To the Lighthouse" post, titled "Pivot," accessed at http://neverendingstoryhaikutanka.blogspot.com/2018/09/to-lighthouse-pivot.html