English Original
a single cicada
ushers in the summer
once again
marking the calendar
one of empty squares
Notes From the Gean, June 2012
Kala Ramesh
Chinese Translation (Traditional)
一隻蟬
迎來了夏天
再一次
標記日曆中
的一個空方塊
Chinese Translation (Simplified)
一只蝉
迎来了夏天
再一次
标记日历中
的一个空方块
Bio Sketch
Kala Ramesh has published more than one thousand poems comprising haiku, tanka, haibun, & renku in reputed journals and anthologies in Japan, Europe, UK, Australia, USA and India. Her work can be read in two prestigious publications: Haiku 21: an anthology of contemporary English-language Haiku (Modern Haiku Press, 2012) and Haiku in English - the First Hundred Years (W.W. Norton 2013). She enjoys teaching haiku and allied genres at the Symbiosis International University, Pune.
A change of seasons (from spring to summer) is auditorily and visually portrayed through a cicada's song and marking the calendar.
ReplyDeleteAnd the pivot, "once again," enhances the emotional aspect of the tanka.
Technically speaking, this tanka reminds me of the following one:
in a world
of green
one branch
burning
into Autumn
NeverEnding Story, September 22, 2017
Kris Lindbeck
My cicada tanka below could be read as a prequel to Kala's:
Deletestreaks of crimson
swallowed by the night sky
yet still
the rise and fall
of a cicada's song
Cattails, April, 2021