English Original
a girl is pulled
from her papi's arms
at the border --
months later, still silent
about her stay in the shelter
redlights, January 2020
Susan Weaver
Chinese Translation (Traditional)
在邊界一個小女孩
從她爸爸的懷裡
被拉開帶走 --
幾個月後, 依舊沒有關於她
住在收容所的消息
Chinese Translation (Simplified)
在边界一个小女孩
从她爸爸的怀里
被拉开带走 --
几个月后, 依旧没有关于她
住在收容所的消息
Bio Sketch
After a career as a magazine journalist specializing in bicycling and active travel, Susan Weaver began writing tanka in 2009. Her work appears regularly in Moonbathing, red lights, Ribbons, and elsewhere, and she is tanka prose editor of Ribbons. She lives in Pennsylvania with her landscape-painter husband and two cats.
The opening scene is heart-wrenching while the concluding statement adds emotional weight and psychological depth to this migrant child tanka.
ReplyDeleteFYI: Nearly 1,000 migrant children separated at the U.S.-Mexico border by the administration of former President Donald Trump have yet to be reunited with their parents despite a two-year effort by President Joe Biden ... excerpted from Reuters, February 2, 2023: "Close to 1,000 migrant children separated by Trump yet to be reunited with parents," accessed at https://www.reuters.com/world/us/close-1000-migrant-children-separated-by-trump-yet-be-reunited-with-parents-2023-02-02/
And my tanka below could be read as a sequel to Susan's:
first night
of deportation ...
a child
looking at the grass
covered with frost
Cattails, April 2017