English Original
on the windy hill
beneath the buckeye tree
a white cross
where her boy plays baseball
night and day
A Hundred Gourds, 1:1, December 2011
Marian Olson
Chinese Translation (Traditional)
在大風的小丘上
七葉樹下
一個白色的十字架
是她兒子日日夜夜
打棒球的地方
Chinese Translation (Simplified)
在大风的小丘上
七叶树下
一个白色的十字架
是她儿子日日夜夜
打棒球的地方
Bio Sketch
Marian Olson, non-fiction writer and widely published international poet, was the author of nine books of poetry, including the award winning haiku in Songs of the Chicken Yard, Desert Hours, Consider This, and Moondance. Published in 2017, The Other and Kaleidoscope were her first books of tanka.
Marian's tanka effectively builds, poetic phrase(ku)/line by poetic phrase(ku)/line, to a thematically significant and visually and emotionally poignant ending that reveals the theme of love, loss, and longing, which reminds me of the following remark:
ReplyDeleteNo parent should have to bury a child ... No mother should have to bury a son. Mothers are not meant to bury sons. It is not in the natural order of things.
Stephen Adly Guirgis, "The Last Days of Judas Iscario"