Thursday, March 14, 2024

One Man's Maple Moon: Final Glance Tanka by Sonam Chhoki

English Original

a final glance
through rain-splatttered screen
my ancestral home
so much left behind
so much carried with me

Atlas Poetica, 9, Summer 2011

Sonam Chhoki 


Chinese Translation (Traditional)

透過雨滴濺濕的紗窗
的最後一瞥
我的祖屋
留下這麼多東西未帶走
我仍然帶走這麼多東西

Chinese Translation (Simplified)

透过雨滴溅湿的纱窗
的最后一瞥
我的祖屋
留下这么多东西未带走
我仍然带走这么多东西


Bio Sketch

Sonam Chhoki finds the Japanese short form poetry resonates with her Tibetan Buddhist upbringing.  She is inspired by her father, Sonam Gyamtsho, the architect of Bhutan's non-monastic modern education and by her mother, Chhoden Jangmu, who taught her: “Being a girl doesn’t mean you can’t do anything.” She is the principal editor, and co-editor of haibun for the United Haiku and Tanka Society journal, cattails.

1 comment:

  1. Ls 1&2 sets the scene and mood while L3 puts a special emphasis, visual and emotional, on the theme that is enhanced by the dialectical use of (almost) syntactic parallelism in Ls 4&5.

    And her tanka below could be read as a sequel:

    driving away
    from the ancestral home
    this thought . . .
    tomorrow the early sun
    will slant into my empty room

    Eucalypt, 10, 2011

    Sonam Chhoki

    ReplyDelete