Haiku and the Pictograph in EL, [my head in the clouds] by Ruby Spriggs (September 2006)


. . . .

This is an EL (Earth Language) experimental page to enjoy
the image of a haiku/short poem originally in English/Japanese.
When you can't see the Japanese parts, please don't mind and just skip those parts , or see here to view Japanese.
地球語の文字や文字絵を用いて詩的表現や翻訳を試みる実験のページです。

I was living near Lake Shinji in northwestern Japan in my twenties.
At September sunset times, I frequently sketched the clouds there.
The clouds above the lake were never the same, playing reflecting lights
from the universe to this and another worlds; the lake was accepting all of
these performances endlessly telling stories. This haiku lets me recall the memory.

This August, I suffered from a rash from poison oak. I became like the toad in
the pictograph in last month’s page. At that time I found this one-line-haiku
in a haiku site by Richard Gilbert.
It gave me a rest for a while from the crazy itch of the rash.
The haiku is by Ruby Spriggs; originally from Snow on the Water:
The Red Moon Anthology of English-Language Haiku, 1998.
According to the editor Jim Kacian, the author Ruby Spriggs was a Canadian
born in England; but she passed away a couple of years ago.
She might have helped me to find her poem from heaven.

20代のころ、私は宍道湖の近くに住んでいて、よく湖の雲をスケッチしました。
特に9月の夕方の雲は刻々と表情を変え、宇宙からの光をこの世・あの世に反射し、
私をファンタジーの中に誘い込みます。
このRuby Spriggsさんの俳句をRichard Gilbertさん
ウェブサイトで見たとき、思わずその時の気分がよみがえりました。
オリジナルは同人誌  The Red Moon Anthology of English-Language Haiku, 1998からです。
編集責任者のジムさんによると、イギリス生まれのカナダ人の作者
ルビーさんは2年前にお亡くなりになったそうです。

8月のページに蝦蟇の文字絵をアップしてまもなく、
私はポイズン・オークにひどくかぶれて蝦蟇の絵のように
でこぼこになり、2週間以上カユミで狂いそうでした。
そんなときに見つけたこの俳句が、しばらくカユサを忘れさせてくれました。
ルビーさんが天国から彼女の俳句のページに導いて助けてくれたのかもしれません。


Original haiku by Ruby Spriggs:

my head in the clouds in the lake

Japanese translation:
あたま置く湖の雲のまなかに

Earth Language translation:



The symbols in the pictograph:
: the head (頭), : cloud (雲), : wave (波)

The symbols in the EL translation:
{ to form a pronoun by compounding with another character, back}:  I/my/me (in this case, my, modifying the following "head")(私); this sign points the center of the chest ( position code) by the thumb (for ).
{ , existence} (as a fundamental character by the shape): the head (頭)
{ preposition mark, inner direction} : in (~の中の/に)
{ nature, }(as a fundamental character by the shape): cloud; clouds are shown by the plural number of the ideogram in this case.(雲、ここでは複数文字で複数の雲を表現)
{ nature, place, holding, water}: lake (湖)

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