Post it Note Poetry Day 16 and 17

Day 16

old farm midden
digging through broken history
an empty bottle
still carries a message
from the hand that tossed it

 

This is perhaps my fourth or fifth attempt at a Tanka and the second that I am happy with.  As a point of interest the poem was constructed as a Haiku first, conforming more or less to the short(4) long(8) short (5) pattern of haiku.

 

old farm midden
digging through broken history
an empty bottle

the third line an empty bottle works as a pivot for the last two lines.  I think it links them nicely.

 

an empty bottle
still carries a message
from the hand that tossed it

I’ll leave you to ponder what I am getting at.

 

Day 17

I have been reading different translations of Basho’s Haiku and was ever so slightly frustrated with the translation by Nobuyuki Yuasa compared to my preferred translation by Jane Reichhold.  The former over explains the content of poem in my opinion. The first line here is in Japanese and is from Basho’s most famous poem (translates to Old pond <cutting word>)

 

 

furuike ya
a handful of translations
like snowflakes