Poetic Musings: Inside Out Tanka by Kala Ramesh

the aum

on our front doors

hers ornamental

and mine in plain wood

reveals us inside out

Skylark, 6:2, Winter 2018

Kala Ramesh

Commentary: This tanka of mine will demonstrate how link and shift and layering between images work to convey, in 17 words, something that defines who I am against the backdrop of culture... Let’s see where the breaks occur in this tanka. In lines 1 and 2, “aum” and “front doors” form the main keywords or setting — they situate the tanka, mise-en-scène, so to speak. Lines 3 and 4 cut away and go into the nature of the aum sign. Each line and image forms another layer (the montage effect) until we come to line 5, where I (the narrator) take you (the reader) into the cultural and geographical backdrop of my neighbor’s aum and mine: our different upbringings, how our inner worlds work. The shift in that last line, with its bit of disjunction, brings unity and completion to the poem...

--excerpted from "To the Lighthouse: Link and Shift: The Leap in Our Understanding by Kala Ramesh"

FYI: One of the most important Haidu symbols, "aum," symbolizes the Universe and the ultimate reality.