a siren
comes and goes …
somewhere
a mother hugs her newborn,
a man outlives his son
Eucalypt, 19, 2015
Susan Constable
Chinese Translation (Traditional)
警笛聲
來了又走了 ...
在某個地方
一個媽媽擁抱她的新生兒，
一個男人活得比他的兒子久
Chinese Translation (Simplified)
警笛声
来了又走了 ...
在某个地方
一个妈妈拥抱她的新生儿，
一个男人活得比他的儿子久
Bio Sketch
Susan Constable’s haiku and tanka appear in numerous journals and anthologies. Her tanka collection, The Eternity of Waves, was
one of the winning entries in the eChapbook Awards for 2012. She
co-edited the 2014 anthology for the Seabeck Haiku Retreat and is a
co-editor for the 2016 TSA Anthology.
Modeled on traditional Japanese tanka, this heartfelt poem is made up of five poetic phrases (ku) and structured into two parts (“jo,” the preface and the main statement). Susan’s tanka effectively builds, poetic phrase/line by poetic phrase/line, to a thematically significant and emotionally powerful ending that has the most weight and reveals the theme of life and death. And on a second reading, the "siren" in the upper verse successfully carries symbolic significance.
ReplyDelete