The wind spins
leaves on the birch
faces
of sorrow
faces of light
Mark Gordon
Chinese Translation (Traditional)
大風不停地
轉動樺樹的葉子
悲傷的
面孔
明亮的面孔
Chinese Translation (Simplified)
大风不停地
转动桦树的叶子
悲伤的
面孔
明亮的面孔
Bio Sketch
Mark Gordon grew up in Halifax, Nova Scotia. He started writing tanka two years ago on Twitter. His longer poems have been published in numerous literary journals, including Poet Lore, Quiddity and Illuminations. He has lived in Toronto for the past forty years, where he has taught ESL to newcomers to Canada.
Technically speaking, this is a good example of what American poet, Archibald MacLeish, calls a "coupling of images:"
ReplyDelete"One image is established by words which make it sensuous and vivid to the the eyes or ears or touch-to any of the senses. Another image is put beside it.
And a meaning appears which is neither the meaning of one image nor the meaning of the other nor even the sum of both but a consequence of both-a consequence of both in their conjunction, in their relation to each other."
And combined with the symbolic connotation of birch leaves, Mark's use of syntactic parallelism makes the poem effective and affecting, adding emotional weight and psychological depth to the poem.