English Original
lotus pond
a frog's song vibrates
the other world
David He
Chinese Translation (Traditional)
荷花池
青蛙的歌聲震響
彼岸的世界
Chinese Translation (Simplified)
荷花池
青蛙的歌声震响
彼岸的世界
Bio Sketch
David He has been working as an advanced English teacher for 35 years in a high school in China. So far he has published twenty short stories in English. In recent years he has published haiku and tanka in print journals and e-zines, including Acorn, The Heron’s Nest, Frogpond, Ribbons and Cattails.
The twist in L3 adds a spiritual/religious bent to this frog haiku when evaluated in the Buddhist context of "lotus pond" (often associated with purity and spiritual awakening/enlightenment) and "other world" (or "other shore, a literary phrase used in Buddhist texts")
ReplyDeleteTechnically speaking, David's fine haiku reminds me of the following one:
pulling light
from the other world ...
the Milky Way
Yatsuka Ishihara, a revered Japanese haiku master who claimed, "A haiku should present the truth as if it were fiction," at the 1995 HSA-HI Chicago Conference
FYI: For more about Yatsuka Ishihar's work, see "Dark Wings of the Night: Yatsuka Ishihara and His Theory of Introspective Shaping," accessed at https://neverendingstoryhaikutanka.blogspot.com/2015/07/dark-wings-of-night-yatsuka-ishihara.html
And it might be interesting to do a thematic comparison reading of my haiku (allusive to Basho's frog haiku) below:
lotus pond …
all that remains
of frog song
Haibun Today, 12:2, June 2018
FYI: This is the concluding haiku of my haibun, "The Old Man Who Read Basho," accessed at http://chenouliu.blogspot.com/2018/07/the-old-man-who-read-basho.html