English Original
under the shelter
of a weeping willow tree
she sleeps at last
on damp earth and newspapers --
a haven, for one night
Marion Alice Poirier
Chinese Translation (Traditional)
一棵垂柳
的蔭蔽之下
躺在潮濕泥土和報紙上面
她終於睡著了 --
一個避風港, 僅僅一晚
Chinese Translation (Simplified)
一棵垂柳
的荫蔽之下
躺在潮湿泥土和报纸上面
她终于睡着了 --
一个避风港, 仅仅一晚
Bio Sketch
Marion Alice Poirier is a lifetime resident of Boston, MA. She began writing haiku in 2001 and eventually began to teach haiku in workshops on Poetry Circle and Emerging Poets. She also write short poetry and have been published in on-line haiku and short poetry journals like Tinywords, Hedgerow and The Heron's Nest.
The weeping willow, a traditional emblem of grief and consolation, in Ls 1&2 is set against the starkly modern, gritty detail of “newspapers” in L4. This juxtaposition is both thematically significant and visually and emotionally poignant. This grounded, contemporary image transforms the tanka from a simple nature vignette into a poignant social meditation on homelessness and displacement.
ReplyDeleteThe comma in L5, “a haven, for one night,” functions as a "terminal caesura, a deliberate pause that shapes the reader’s experience of the tanka’s conclusion." That "brief hesitation" underscores the fragility of the refuge described in Ls 1-4, sharpening the quiet irony at the heart of the scene.