Tanka - asto

[órerámar]

Here is a tanka:

Pelláta fenna -
arma tintea pó nin
picina asto
síra ece nin save
nalme elenermava

Halfopen door -
a ray of sunlight makes sparkle before me
a little dust
today I may believe
we are of starmatter

The original German Tanka was first published in "Einunddreissig" an online Tanka magazin
http://www.einunddreissig.net/aktuelle-ausgabe.html

I would have liked to use in Quenya also _magic wand, or wizard's wand_ like in German in the first line, but nothing I came up with convinced me:
ve istar'olwenn (like a wizard's wand)
ve sairin'olwenn (like a magic wand)

Does someone have a better idea?

[Aran]

First off, olwen is Early Qenya, later olba/olwa just means 'branch'; but I think it's still okay to use for 'staff' or 'wand' since the sword-name Gurtholf is translated as 'Wand of Death' in the Etymologies (containing the Noldorin cognate golf of olwa).
For 'magic', curu 'skill' has much better chances in later Quenya than sairin, appearing in Saruman's name Curumo, for example.

So I would form *olwen istarwa or *olwen curuva. A different problem is that this is one syllable too long.. Perhaps one could switch the lines around, for example:

Tintal' armanen
Ve olwennen istarwa:
Píkina asto

'Sparkling in a ray of sunlight
Like by a wizard's wand:
A little dust'

I like it a lot, by the way.

[órerámar]

Aran wrote:

First off, olwen is Early Qenya

Thank you, Aran, for your input. Yes , I know it is Early Qenya, but I saw this question already debated on Aglardh regarding "scepter", that's why I was tempted to use it here. (But what a shame, I just see that I've put double -nn).

For 'magic', curu 'skill' has much better chances in later Quenya than sairin, appearing in Saruman's name Curumo, for example.

I excluded _curu_ because of Saruman/Curumo

So I would form *olwen istarwa or *olwen curuva. A different problem is that this is one syllable too long.. Perhaps one could switch the lines around, for example:

Tintal' armanen
Ve olwennen istarwa:
Píkina asto

'Sparkling in a ray of sunlight
Like by a wizard's wand:
A little dust'

The syllable count can also be solved by using the _o_ genitive with elision, it's just a matter how one explains the "wand". But your wording is indeed more elegant and the lack of "before me" is not so important, since it is anyway not equivalent to the German "um mich" which puts the person in the center of something magical happening. I think I shall adopt your version.

I like it a lot, by the way

Thank you