English Original
black feathers
scattered along the driveway
a crow
who lost a battle with cats
or went beak to beak with a mate’s mate
Bright Stars, 1, 2014
Gary Blankenship
Chinese Translation (Traditional)
黑色的羽毛
散落在車庫門前的車道
一隻烏鴉
是在與貓的戰鬥中落敗
或是與對手的伴侶嘴鬥嘴
Chinese Translation (Simplified)
黑色的羽毛
散落在车库门前的车道
一只乌鸦
是在与猫的战斗中落败
或是与对手的伴侣嘴斗嘴
Bio Sketch
Gary Blankenship was a retired federal employee whose avocation was poetry, especially Tang poetry. He was author of A River Transformed: Wang Wei's River Wang Poems as Inspiration, a sometime poet, editor, and publisher of MindFire and its companion, FireWeed.
Gary's tanka effectively builds, poetic phrase (ku)/line by poetic phrase (ku)/line, to an unexpected yet visually and emotionally powerful ending that reveals the theme of animal fight /attack. The protagonist, the crow in L3, is vividly portrayed through its "fighting spirit" as manifested in the opening image of scattered feathers as well as in the closing image of going beak to beak with another crow.
ReplyDeleteThis is a fine example of "character tanka."