sometimes
when the sun burns hot
I find shade to write
five lines on the sea
to wash-up at your feet
Skylark, 1:2, Winter 2013
Brian Zimmer
Chinese Translation (Traditional)
有時
當陽光炙熱
我找陰涼處
在海面上寫五行詩
由浪沖刷到你的腳前
Chinese Translation (Simplified)
有时
当阳光炙热
我找阴凉处
在海面上写五行诗
由浪冲刷到你的脚前
Bio Sketch
Brian Zimmer wrote from the banks of the Mississippi River
in St. Louis, Missouri. His work had appeared in various
international print and online journals. He took inspiration from a variety of
sources, including the ancient Japanese poetic-diary (utanikki) and free-form,
poetic "essay" (zuihitsu).
Structurally speaking, Brian's one-sentence tanka is made up of five poetic phrases (five ku), and it flows smoothly from start to finish, without the leap or gap found in the bipartite tanka.
ReplyDeleteThematically speaking, his meta-tanka (a tanka about writing tanka)effectively builds, phrase/line (ku) by phrase/line (ku), to an emotionally powerful ending that has the most weight and reveals the theme of love.
I find this quite beautiful. I imagined the narrator squinting at searing sunlight as he wrote this.
ReplyDeletemarion