Tuesday, August 10, 2021

One Man's Maple Moon: Mountain Mists and Skylark Tanka by Alegria Imperial

English Original

I look again
through mountain mists…
there, a skylark
illumines a thought
conjured in darkness

A Hundred Gourds, 3:3, June 2014

Alegria Imperial


Chinese Translation (Traditional)

透過山霧
我再一次注視 ...
那裡有一隻雲雀
啟發我在黑暗中
構思的意念

Chinese Translation (Simplified)

透过山雾
我再一次注视 ...
那里有一只云雀
启发我在黑暗中
构思的意念


Bio Sketch

Alegria Imperial’s haiku for Haiku Foundation’s 2012 Haiku Competition was Commended in the traditional category. She has also won honorable mentions in the 2007 Vancouver Cherry Blossoms Festival Invitational Haiku and her tanka adjudged Excellent, 7th International Tanka Festival Competition 2012. Her poetry have been published in international journals among them A Hundred GourdsThe Heron’s NestLYNXNotes from the Gean, eucalypt and GUSTS. Formerly of Manila Philippines, she now lives in Vancouver, BC, Canada.

1 comment:

  1. Thematically speaking, this evocative tanka is tightly framed by the symbolically rich and psychologically resonant phrases, [the speaker's seeing] "through 'mountain mists'" and [a skylark illuminating] "a thought/conjured in 'darkness.'" And the relationship between the speaker and the skylark reminds me of the one between Percy Bysshe Shelley and the skylark described in "To a Skylark."

    Note: "'To a Skylark' is considered a work of metric virtuosity in its ability to convey the swift movement of the bird who swoops high above the earth, beyond mortal experience. The skylark is a symbol of the joyous spirit of the divine; it cannot be understood by ordinary, empirical methods. The poet, longing to be a skylark, muses that the bird has never experienced the disappointments and disillusionments of human life, including the diminishment of passion."

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