English Original
as sunlight fades
I walk sleepy streets
with old ghosts. . .
where our house once stood
only the oak remains
Marion Alice Poirier
Chinese Translation (Traditional)
當陽光臨近暮色時
與老鬼魂們我走在缺乏人聲
令人昏睡的街道上 ...
這是我們的房子曾經矗立的地方
如今只剩下一棵橡樹
Chinese Translation (Simplified)
当阳光临近暮色时
与老鬼魂们我走在缺乏人声
令人昏睡的街道上 ...
这是我们的房子曾经矗立的地方
如今只剩下一棵橡树
Bio Sketch
Marion Alice Poirier is a lifetime resident of Boston, MA. She began writing haiku in 2001 and eventually began to teach haiku in workshops on Poetry Circle and Emerging Poets. She also write short poetry and have been published in on-line haiku and short poetry journals like Tinywords, Hedgerow and The Heron's Nest.
Marion's middle-of-the-story tanka effectively builds, poetic phrase (ku)/line by poetic phrase (ku)/line, to a thematically significant and visually and emotionally poignant endings that reveals the theme of homecoing, a time-honored American literary tradition, about returning to the speaker's small town (as indicated in Ls 1&2, almost no one or store open on the streets as the sun sets), past traumas (as implied from L3), and nostalgia (as hinted at in Ls 4&5).
ReplyDeleteAnd it might be interesting to do a thematic comparison reading of the following tanka:
late summer rain
this green, green grass
oh! … glistening
surrounds our new house
and the old oak stump
NeverEnding Story, October 17, 2021
Denis M. Garrison