literature

Lilac II - tanka

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May 18, 2013
Lilac II - tanka by ~Atheshya is a beautiful tanka with imagery as serene as a midnight respite, says the suggester.
Featured by Nichrysalis
Suggested by Concora
Atheshya's avatar
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Published:
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Literature Text

a star-glow  
connects their breaths -
a river path.  
     in lilac light  
     she forgets to sigh.
About 'Lilac':
This is a series of poems that are each the same idea translated into different poetry forms from different parts of the world.


About 'Lilac II':
Japanese style. This is a tanka. One of the main requirements for it is that each line/unit has a certain number of morae, which are a unit of speech smaller than syllables. [link] The pattern of morae per line/unit is 5-7-5-7-7.

As far as I could tell, tanka have far less rules than haiku, though are still supposed to be about nature and the seasons. They are apparently often written in Japanese as just one line, rather than as five. This would make a closer to traditional version of this poem be:

a star-glow connects their breaths - a river path. in lilac light she forgets to sigh.

I think I failed here entirely. This is way less about tangible reality than it's supposed to be… but as it was neither easy nor fun to write, I don't feel like trying again.


Lilac I: [link]
Lilac III: [link]
Lilac IV: [link]

~Obligatory post-DD update~
Oh my goodness guys. Oh wow. Thanks to the suggester, all who commented, just... wow. Was not expecting this in the slightest! Looks that I didn't "fail here entirely" after all. ^-^
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Comments22
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How is this a failure?  It is quite tangible.  I have seen starglows, breaths, river paths and lilac lights.  And forgetting to sight is real enough.  This is not failure.