English Original
outdoor café
a man as old as i
with a smile
that reveals a truce
with sadness
George Swede
Chinese Translation (Traditional)
戶外咖啡館
一個和我一樣老的人
面帶微笑
流露出與他的悲傷
和平相處
Chinese Translation (Simplified)
户外咖啡馆
一个和我一样老的人
面带微笑
流露出与他的悲伤
和平相处
Bio Sketch
George Swede's most recent collections of haiku are Almost Unseen (Decatur, IL: Brooks Books, 2000), Joy In Me Still (Edmonton: Inkling Press, 2010) and micro haiku: three to nine syllables (Inspress, 2014). He is a former editor of Frogpond: Journal of the Haiku Society of America (2008-2012) and a former Honorary Curator of the American Haiku Archives (2008-2009).
A thematically significant and emotionally powerful buildup to the last lines: (with a smile in L3) "a truce/with sadness" (Ls 4&5).
ReplyDeleteThis understated tanka effectively conveys a sense of enlightened understanding, and it thematic focus reminds me of the following remark by Confucius
... At fifty, I knew what were the biddings of Heaven. At sixty, I heard them with docile ear. At seventy, I could follow the dictates of my own heart; for what I desired no longer overstepped the boundaries of right...
And it might be interesting to do a comparative reading of the following two tanka:
freezing drizzle
expected to be mixed in
with the snow...
I feel the urge
to stir my coffee clockwise
Atlas Poetica, 19, 2014
Chen-ou Liu
stirring my coffee
anti-clockwise ...
I wonder
if everything would
go back in time
Sonic Boom, 1, December 2014
Ramesh Anand