English Original
my childhood home
framed by river redgums --
I stumble
over exposed roots
and family scandals
First Place, UHTS Fleeting Words Tanka Competition, 2021
Marilyn Humbert
Chinese Translation (Traditional)
我童年房子的景色
被一大群河畔紅桉樹框住
我走過絆倒了
因為它們過度暴露的根部
以及家庭的醜聞
Chinese Translation (Simplified)
我童年房子的景色
被一大群河畔红桉树框住
我走过绊倒了
因为它们过度暴露的根部
以及家庭的丑闻
Bio Sketch
Marilyn Humbert lives in the Northern suburbs of Sydney NSW Australia. Her tanka and haiku appear in international and Australian journals, anthologies and online. Her free verse poems have been awarded prizes in competitions and some have been published.
Ls 1&2 establish the relationship between these iconic and most adaptable Australian trees and the speaker's family, and the framework where the speaker, along with the reader, understands both himself/herself and his/her family.
ReplyDeleteThe root cause of unexpected yet thematically significant and emotionally poignant L5 is hinted at by visually arresting and symbolically rich L4.
One question remains: will the speaker's family, much like these most adaptable river redgums, survive a series of scandals, past, present, and even future?
What's left unsaid is at least as potent as what is said in this family tanka.
FYI: "River red gums, Eucalyptus camaldulensis, are among the most iconic of Australia’s eucalypts. They are the most widely distributed of all the eucalypts. They grow along rivers, creeks, waterways and flood plains where many Australians like to picnic, so most of us get to know and love them."
River red gums can tolerate immersion in flood waters for up to nine months. They do this by having extensive roots, some of which contain a spongy, air-filled tissue called aerenchyma that allows for the accumulation and transport of much-needed oxygen in waterlogged soils. This adaptation to stressed soils also means river red gums can do quite well in disturbed urban soils when the urban sprawl impinges on their natural domain...
-- excerpted from The Conversation, July 12 , 2019: The river red gum is an icon of the driest continent, accessed at https://theconversation.com/the-river-red-gum-is-an-icon-of-the-driest-continent-118839