the fog doesn't
come on little cat feet,
Mr Sandburg;
it shuffles in the wake
of the minimum-waged
A Hundred Gourds, 5:1, December 2015
Bob Lucky
Chinese Translation (Traditional)
霧並沒有像小貓般
悄悄地到來，
桑德堡先生;
它在最低工資者身後
拖曳而行
Chinese Translation (Simplified)
雾并没有像小猫般
悄悄地到来，
桑德堡先生;
它在最低工资者身後
拖曳而行
Bio Sketch
Bob Lucky is the author of the chapbook Ethiopian Time and the content editor at Contemporary Haibun Online. He lives in Saudi Arabia.
The upper verse is antithetical to Sandburg's 1916 haiku-influenced, most anthologized poem whose vivid image of a fog coming on "little cat feet" tries to convey the incommunicable loveliness of the earth, of life:
ReplyDelete"Fog"
The fog comes
on little cat feet.
It sits looking
over harbor and city
on silent haunches
and then moves on.
The image of a shuffle of approaching feet in the lower verse not only adds sociopolitical significance to the poem, but also would have pulled at the heartstrings of this workingman's poet, Carl Sandburg.
A timely, poignantly written tanka!
Bob's "cat feet" tanka remind me of another two tanka that employed this Sandburgesque image:
ReplyDeletesilence comes
on little cat feet ...
soft and warm
as a late-summer breeze
or a goodnight kiss
NeverEnding Story, April 14, 2015
Susan Constable
nostalgia
comes on little cat feet
sitting beside me
it practices zazen
like a stone Buddha
red lights, June 2011
Chen-ou Liu