Tanka

I couldn’t find the street
Where my lover used to live
A morass of houses
Anyway it doesn’t matter
Hopeless, bringing back the past



Tanka

The festive street Tanka


Walked in blank streets
Bitter and confused cried:
Where is my home?
It’s very hard to understand
That the past has erased it




Tanka (Eyak, an Alaskan Indian Language)

A frisson of fear
The Eyak language died
Its speaker too
A minority language gone
Its silence is terrifying


Now that bars and clubs have shut
Looks disillusioned
But is a dark hunting ground
Where a rats, caught by cats, shrieks