English Original
after five years
no longer your caregiver,
nothing matters now ...
unable to live
you sleep forever
Lorraine Pester
Chinese Translation (Traditional)
五年後
不再是你的照顧者,
現在什麼都不重要了 ...
無法活下去
你永遠沉睡
Chinese Translation (Simplified)
五年后
不再是你的照顾者,
现在什么都不重要了 ...
无法活下去
你永远沉睡
Bio Sketch
Being curious and staying open to possibility is Lorraine Pester’s way of keeping her haikai fresh. She shies from no topic that presents itself. Her deliberate interactions with birds while dog walking is a frequent theme. She lives with her husband and Abbey schnauzer in south Texas.
Lorraine's tanka effectively builds, poetic phrase (ku) / line by poetic phrase (ku) / line, to a thematically significant and emotionally poignant ending that reveals the theme of multiple losses, life (Ls 4&5), relationship (Ls 1&2) and life goal (L3), in the context of caregiving.
ReplyDeleteAnd it might be interesting to do a thematic comparison reading of my caregiving tanka below:
some light bulbs
in mother's mind sputter out
as others dim...
I'm her caregiver, and yet
often treated like a stranger
Take 5ive, "Love & Loss," 2023