Saturday, June 20, 2020

One Man's Maple Moon: Rocky Slope Tanka by Mary Vlooswyk

English Original

on a rocky slope
a steady clink, clink, clink
from stone
they chisel by hand
someone else's dream

Mary Vlooswyk


Chinese Translation (Traditional)

來自岩石斜坡上
持續地敲打石頭
的叮噹聲
他們用手挖鑿
別人的夢想

Chinese Translation (Simplified)

来自岩石斜坡上
持续地敲打石头
的叮当声
他们用手挖凿
别人的梦想


Bio Sketch

Mary Vlooswyk is from Calgary, Canada.  She is a poet and cellist who also likes to dabble in visual arts. Her haiku and tanka has been published in the book, A Pebble In My Shoe and various international magazines.

1 comment:

  1. Mary's tanka effectively builds, poetic phrase/line by poetic phrase/line, to a thematically significant and emotionally powerful ending that reveals the theme of "work vs/and dream(not of the kind of "work hard and dream big" but of the kind of "work hard to build someone else's dream"). And the use of repetition in an auditory image of chiseling stones adds emotional weight to the tanka.

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