the pieces
of his jigsaw puzzle
litter the floor . . .
winter moonlight slipping
through the hospice window
Tanka First Place, 2015 San Francisco International Competition, Haiku, Senryu and Tanka
Judge's Comment by Margaret Chula: A
poignant scene, beautifully rendered without overstatement or
sentimentality. Beginning with the first line (“the pieces”), this tanka
is about separation. A jigsaw puzzle serves as the perfect metaphor for
how we organize things in our minds to have them make sense. But, for
this man, deterioration has set in, both physical and mental. Things
don’t fit together anymore. The verb “litter” is an excellent choice to
illustrate how pieces are scattered like trash with no organization or
purpose. Both the puzzle and the man have come apart. The brilliance of
this tanka is that the reader does not know that it takes place in a
hospice until the final line. In the first three lines, we can easily
imagine a child scattering puzzle pieces on the floor—eliciting an
entirely different emotional response. Strong verbs with multiple
meanings add an emotional resonance. “Slipping” can be interpreted as
“slipping away,” which is what happens in hospice. And yet there is hope
here, too, with the moonlight suggesting a moment of lucidity.
