English Original
getting drunk
while i think of you
who almost lived
i cut down the tire swing
then the oak it hung from
H. Gene Murtha
Chinese Translation (Traditional)
喝醉了
當我想到你
幾乎存活下來的時候
我砍下輪胎做的鞦韆
然後砍倒掛在其上的橡樹
Chinese Translation (Simplified)
喝醉了
当我想到你
几乎存活下来的时候
我砍下轮胎做的秋千
然后砍倒挂在其上的橡树
Bio Sketch
H. Gene Murtha, a naturalist and poet, sponsored and judged the first haiku contest for the inner city children of Camden, NJ., for the Virgilio Group, of which he was a lifetime member. He was widely published for his work in haikai literature from the USA to Japan.
Gene's tanka effectively builds, poetic phrase(ku)/line by poetic phrase (ku)/line, to an unexpected yet visually and emotionally poignant ending that reveals the theme of distorted grief (a form of complicated grief).
ReplyDeleteAnd the tire swing tanka below included in the same collection could be read as a prequel:
even now
decades later
I wait
on the tire swing
hanging in the elm
Biding Time: Selected Poems 2001-2013, 2013
And it might be interesting to do a thematic comparative reading of my tanka below:
a winter gust
riding the old swing
in the backyard ...
my childhood sweetheart
in and out of my thoughts
A Hundred Gourds, 3:4, September 2014