English Original
on the sill's edge
rests a dove's flimsy nest
how hard
the rite of passage
to arrive at this new land
Eucalypt, 26, 2019
Samantha Sirimanne Hyde
Chinese Translation (Traditional)
脆弱的鴿巢
棲息在窗台邊上
來到這片新土地
的儀式
是多麼難啊
Chinese Translation (Simplified)
脆弱的鸽巢
栖息在窗台边上
来到这片新土地
的仪式
是多么难啊
Bio Sketch
Samantha Sirimanne Hyde was born in Sri Lanka and now lives in Australia. She enjoys dabbling in short fiction, free verse, haiku, tanka and other Japanese poetry forms.
The contrast and comparison between a "dove's flimsy nest" in L2 and "this new land" [of honey and milk as often mythologized in diasporic/immigrant/migrant literature] in L5 is symbolically rich and thought-provoking. And Ls 3&4 enhance the emotionaly suggestive power of this tanka.
ReplyDeleteAnd it might be interesting to do a thematic comparative reading of my tanka below:
a leatherback surfaces
with its head through a hole
in driftwood ...
I gaze beyond moonlit ripples
to the homeland I left behind
The Bamboo Hut, 2, 2023
Note: The leatherback turtle can travel 16,000 km (10,000 miles) or more each year, crossing the entire Pacific Ocean in search of jellyfish.