Wednesday, January 8, 2014

One Man's Maple Moon: Tides Tanka by M. Kei

English Original

new moon or full moon
the tides are fullest
why is there no tide
that pulls him to me
this autumn night?

M. Kei


Chinese Translation (Traditional)

在新月或滿月
潮汐是最大的
這個秋夜
為什麼沒有潮水
將他拉到我的身旁?

Chinese Translation (Simplified)

在新月或满月
潮汐是最大的
这个秋夜
为什麽没有潮水
将他拉到我的身旁?


Bio Sketch

M. Kei is a tall ship sailor and award-winning poet. He is the editor-in-chief of Take Five : Best Contemporary Tanka, and the author of Slow Motion : The Log of a Chesapeake Bay Skipjack (Recommend Reading by the Chesapeake Bay Project). He is the editor of Atlas Poetica : A Journal of Poetry of Place in Contemporary Tanka and compiler of the Bibliography of English-Language Tanka. He has published over 1500 tanka poems. He also published a gay Asian-themed fantasy novel, Fire Dragon. Twitter: @kujakupoet

1 comment:

  1. The upper verse makes a truthful statement about a natural phenomenon, which is intended to apply to human relationships, while the question posed in the lower verse could be read as a rhetorical one that is asked to make a point or is to encourage readers to consider a message or viewpoint.

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