Sunday, August 20, 2023

Butterfly Dream: Crack Haiku by Margaret Chula

English Original

Mother’s dementia
moonlight shines through
a crack in the blinds


Margaret Chula 


Chinese Translation (Traditional)

母親的癡呆症
透過百葉窗的間隙
月光照射進來

Chinese Translation (Simplified)

母亲的痴呆症
透过百叶窗的间隙
月光照射进来


Bio Sketch
 
Margaret Chula has published two collections of tanka: Always Filling, Always Full and Just This. She has promoted tanka through her one-woman dramatization, “Three Women Who Loved Love”, which traveled to Krakow, New York, Boston, Portland, Ottawa, and Ogaki, Japan. And from 2011 to 2015, Maggie served as president of the Tanka Society of America.

1 comment:

  1. L1 sets the theme and mood while visually evocative and symbolically rich Ls 2&3 offer a glimpse of hope, reminding me of the following powerful lyrics:


    Ring the bells that still can ring
    Forget your perfect offering
    There is a crack, a crack in everything
    That’s how the light gets in.

    Leonard Cohen, "Anthem," 1992

    FYI: The moon is a Buddhist symbol of enlightenment.

    And it might be interesting to do a thematic comparative reading of my haiku below:

    Father slipping
    through the cracks in words ...
    patchy fog

    Commended, 2016 New Zealand Poetry Society Haiku Competition

    ReplyDelete