Chen-ou Liu's Translation Project: First English-Chinese Haiku and Tanka Blog

Monday, September 19, 2011

Between Autumn and Winter: A Tanka Sequence

pulling up the blind
in this mid-autumn sky
I see
her plane leaving
the long white trail

she's gone forever
darkness fills up the space
where my heart
has reserved for her
since we first met in '68

alone
by the Pacific shore
I put
a seashell to my ear
on a windy autumn day

a handful of sand
defying the grip
of my clasped fingers
Cupid’s arrows fly
at a lonely darts pub

the ebb
and flow of thoughts
of her
that keep beckoning me
on that starry night

autumn
that crimson lure
tricks me

into forgetting
winter will come soon


Lynx,XXVI:3, October 2011