Category Archives: lyrical poetry

Catching up!

Posted on by

Today I realized I’d forgotten to post a number of poems published this year (2020), so here they are. I hope you enjoy reading them.

 

 

Ribbons 16:2 (spring 2020)

icebergs drift and melt
and furious fires rage
will this earth dissolve
into rivulets
of decisions poorly made?

 

~

 

Frameless Sky, Issue 12, 2020

 

soft ripe plums
sitting on the sideboard ~
wouldn’t it lovely
to know you’re
so desired

 

 

Presence 66

tiny fledglings
with wings outstretched
take that first leap—
how old were we
when doubt began

                             ~

 

wind spilling
from copper rain bells
unbroken drought

 

                        ~

impossible
to count them
fireflies 

 

 

Little frog faces (tanka/kyoka)

Posted on by

 

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.

 

 

Half-light (a tanka sequence)

Posted on by

Milkweed by James DeMers (pixabay.com)

These tanka were written during the quarantine of Covid-19. My thanks to editor/poet, Marilyn Hazelton, for persuading me to combine some tanka into a tanka sequence.  A really good editor is priceless. It’s always an honor to have poems included in Redlights. Click on the link below if you care to hear me read it.

 

 

 

 

Half-light

 

August morning
just before the katydids
begin to sing . . .
the lake finally calm
with no ripples

 

milkweed seeds
scatter straight from
the cottony pod ~
such freedom to go
anywhere, everywhere

 

a spoon slowly stirs
cream into coffee
those quiet moments
when we lose
all sense of now

 

arm in arm
we walk together –
forty years & more miles
than either of us
can count

 

half-light—
walking in fog
where nothing is seen
but somehow we trust
it’s still all there

 

 

Red Lights, Summer Issue 2020

 

 

Chokecherry

Posted on by

 

 

the slow hiss
and sudden pop
of a pinecone in fire—
admitting the mistake
is a first step

 

*

 

had you lived
we’d almost be twins,
two sisters
so close in time
we nearly touched

 

*

 

this urge
to turn and walk away
     chokecherry

 

 

Mary Kendall (c) 2020

Kokako 32, 2020, a journal of the New Zealand Poetry Society
My thanks to the editors of Kokako for publishing all three poems.

 

 

Green . . . (Synesthesia in haiku)

Posted on by

Synesthesia in haiku ~

 

This haiku was recently published in Hedgerow, a journal of small poems ~ #130, Winter 2020

 

 

spring…
hearing green
and only green

 

 

 

 

 

 Haru = Spring