39. Poetry by Irina Moga

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Editor’s Note: In an email, Irina shared the compelling backstory of “East Sea” with me. I must share it with you, as it provides such a meaningful, historical context to her already exquisite poem.

Irina stated that she enjoyed writing the three tankas in “East Sea” as a reply to a tanka by Takuboku Ishikawa (1866-1912).

From Wikipedia, the tanka by Ishikawa:

On the white sand
Of the beach of a small island
In the Eastern Sea.
I, my face streaked with tears,
Am playing with a crab.

Irina’s response, published well over a hundred years later, provides a profound sense of timelessness.

East Sea

forward silence — a
loop of quantum resonance
brushes off tears from
your eyes as you gaze across
The East Sea, swathed in moonlight.

string of small islands —
beaches covered by white sand
where our paths crossed once
— a Theory of Everything
excluding love

kneeling in the sand
among crabs, the day after
our breakup — a wave,
like a messenger of particles
circles my ankles.

Copenhagen Interpretation

gravitational
redshift, clocks fending off your
blurred insomniac hours

hyper-sleep passing
mortality through the gate
of an afterthought

the quantum breakpoint
of superimposed perceptions
— Schrödinger’s catspaw

stochastic morning
seen through white cherry blossoms —
observer observed

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