English Original
those half-used tubes
of her cosmetics
why did I keep them?
rubbing in face cream
I feel my mother’s bones
Winter Deepens, 2018
Margaret Chula
Chinese Translation (Traditional)
那些用過一半的
她的化妝品
為什麼還要留著它們？
當塗抹乳霜時
我感覺到母親的骨頭
Chinese Translation (Simplified)
那些用过一半的
她的化妆品
为什么还要留着它们？
当涂抹乳霜时
我感觉到母亲的骨头
Bio Sketch
Margaret Chula has published two collections of tanka: Always Filling, Always Full and Just This. She has promoted tanka through her one-woman dramatization, “Three Women Who Loved Love”, which traveled to Krakow, New York, Boston, Portland, Ottawa, and Ogaki, Japan. And from 2011 to 2015, Maggie served as president of the Tanka Society of America.
Ls 1&2, "those half-used tubes / of her cosmetics," establish a concrete, physical scene. The detail of being "half-used" effectively implies a sudden interruption and lingering absence without explicitly stating them.
ReplyDeleteL3, "why did I keep them?," shifts the tanka from external observation to internal self-questioning. This rhetorical question creates a psychological pause before the emotional climax. It perfectly mirrors the erratic nature of grief, where a mundane thought about an object is suddenly overtaken by deep emotional recognition.
The final movementin Ls 4&5, "rubbing in face cream / I feel my mother’s bones," delivers an unexpectedly visceral conclusion. By blending tactile sensation with memory, the action fuses the speaker's body with the mother's presence. The word "bones" operates on multiple levels, simultaneously evoking mortality, aging, and genetic inheritance.