Category Archives: family stories

Little frog faces (tanka/kyoka)

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One of two tanka appearing Eucalypt: A Tanka Journal, Issue 28, 2020

 

in the attic I find
your small Wellies                            
with little frog faces—
oh, those happy puddles
when you were only three

 

 

Note: We lived near Hampstead Heath in NW London for a full academic year, 1989-90, with our (then) three year old son, Adam. Oh, how he loved rain puddles and stomping in them in his little green Wellies. Getting exercise each day was never a problem with a child who loved the outdoors no matter what the weather. This poem is for him.

 

 

Almost . . . (tanka)

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Ribbons, the Journal of the Tanka Society of America Fall 2018: Volume 14, Number 3

 

 

the long scar

down your chest

almost healed —

so hard to forget

you almost disappeared

 

 

   

Ribbons, the Journal of the Tanka Society of America
Fall 2018: Volume 14, Number 3

 

 

 

Each coloured heart (a tanka)

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Well, somehow I missed this, a tanka published in Eucalypt, one of the finest tanka journals out there.  Eucalypt is published in Australia, the home of a great number of brilliant tanka poets. It’s always a great feeling having a poem published in this journal.
My thanks to Julie Thorndike, the editor.

 

Eucalypt, Spring issue 2018:

 

how it begins
this love of beauty . . .
a little girl touches
each coloured heart
on grandma’s quilt

 

 

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“Stacked Hearts” by Planted Seed Designs

 

Silence . . . (a tanka)

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One tanka published in:

cattails, October 2018 Issue

The Official Journal of the United Haiku and Tanka Society

 

 

 

 

told not to tell

or be a bother

a child soon finds

a world of her own

silence

 

 

 

Mary age 4A

In that silence, poems are born.

 

 

I urge all of you to read the full issue of cattails, which you can download as a pdf here:  http://cattailsjournal.com/currentissue.html

Only four . . . (two tanka)

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Published in Ribbons, Spring/Summer 2018: Volume 14, Number 2

 

 

the squeak

of the old swing . . .

only four when carefully taught

to keep that secret

to myself

 

 

This tanka was published in the Tanka Café of Ribbons

 

 

the little girl’s doll

marred by lipstick

scrawled on her face

. . . maybe this time 

mother will notice

 


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