Thursday, December 8, 2016

One Man's Maple Moon: Black Vase Tanka by Carol Purington

English Original

With one finger
I rub scum from the neck
of a black vase --
it doesn't match my wardrobe,
the scarf he brought from Paris

Ribbons, 9;3, Winter 2013

Carol Purington


Chinese Translation (Traditional)

用一根手指
將黑色花瓶頸上的浮渣
抹掉 --
他從巴黎帶來的圍巾
和我的衣櫃不相匹配

Chinese Translation (Simplified)

用一根手指
将黑色花瓶颈上的浮渣
抹掉 --
他从巴黎带来的围巾
和我的衣柜不相匹配


Bio Sketch

Carol Purington uses tanka to capture flashes of natural loveliness and psychological insight that drift around her rural New England home. Her second collection of tanka, Faces I Might Wear, was published in 2013.

1 comment:

  1. This is a good example of middle-of-the-story tanka: what's left unstated is more thematically significant and emotionally important than what's stated in the poem.

    And on a second reading, the scum and the mismatched scarf effectively carry symbolic significance.

    ReplyDelete