Category Archives: Mary Kendall poetry

The meaning of sanglant…

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A story in the NY Times story last Sunday said, “France is spending nearly 1 millions euros a day on the heightened security, part of a renewed surge in European military spending as governments declare terrorism a permanent risk.”.

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One million euros a day to combat terrorism. What a high price for liberty! The words, “Liberté, Fraternité, Egalité” are known to most of us. The French fought long and hard for democracy, and still, the battle continues. Part of democracy is tolerating dissension, but dissension can come at great risk and price. The French (and other democratic countries) are committed to fighting terrorism at great financial cost. Sadly, this means also at a cost of human lives. Still, there is no other choice…freedom must be protected by all who believe in democratic rule.

 

The following tanka was written as a reflection on the real cost of defeating oppression. It is a brief poem by choice.

 

 

a wash of red

under café tables

in silence

we learn the meaning

of sanglant

 

 

 

lady-liberty

For your reference:

Article:

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/01/business/international/europe-training-financial-firepower-on-terrorism.html

Night Music (haiga)

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night music haiga

 

This photo haiga was created by me as a response to a prompt: ZENITH. This is one day in NaHaiWriMo (National Haiku Writing Month) on Facebook during the month of February.

Brushing Your Hair

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Brushing Your Hair

In the last month you ask me a favor.
Will I brush your hair when you have passed?
You seem to want to greet whatever comes
looking your best. I give my promise.

Each day when I come home, I offer
to brush your hair, but you say no,
maintaining the independence
you have always shown.

Later, in hospice, I no longer ask.
I hold your hands, rubbing lotion in,
skin so fragile, like a butterfly wing.
It is time now to make the last ablutions.

I clean your face and brush your hair,
your sleeping eyes flicker
under paper-thin lids, pale blue veins
tracing their course across them.

I imagine your mother tenderly holding you,
stroking your cheek, watching you dream
in her arms—her newborn daughter
with milky breath.

Ninety-one years separate us, your two watchers.
One joyously bringing you into the world;
the other sitting silently in the dim-lit room,
keeping watch over you through the night.          

 

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The poem, “Brushing Your Hair” is from my chapbook, Erasing the Doubt (c) 2015, Finishing Line Press.

 

 

 

Mary, Mary…poem by Mary Kendall (SAME NAME Poetry and Prose Series)

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A new poem just up at Silver Birch Press. Click at the bottom to get to the original on the SBP site.

silverbirchpress's avatarSilver Birch Press

kate maberlyMary, Mary…
by Mary Kendall

Unwanted.
Unloved.
Shunned.
Spoiled.
Rude.
Aggressive.
Obstinate.
Outspoken.
Contrary.
Sour.
Gloomy.
Dismissive.
Shut away.
Alone.
Alone.
Alone.

Your attributes, little Mary.
A long list.
No one liked you.
Except for me.

Not true. There were others.
Your sweet Indian Ayah, who fed you,
washed you, dressed you, taught you,
tolerated your contrary ways, angry words,
miserable frown. She held you close,
rocked you after nightmares and dark dreams,
fanned you in the hot Indian summers.
She sang to you—mellifluous, soothing songs.

Your mother denied your existence, hid you away from view,
just as later, you’d find your cousin Colin, hidden away, too.

Denial.
What damage it did.
What pain it caused.
Like a plant held too long in a small pot,
its roots pot-bound and crippled,
Colin, unwanted and denied like you.

Unwanted.
Unloved.
Denied.

My family separated when I was just five,
I felt…

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Bits & Pieces

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I had three haiku published in issue #61 of hedgerow, a journal of small poems last week. 

 

old nest box…                                    
a flurry of blue birds
before the snow

 

(hedgerow #61)

 

roasted chestnuts–
how could I forget
your laughter?

 

(hedgerow #61)

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my dog leaps
into still night water
to fetch the moon

 

(hedgerow #61)

 

 

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Dream Time 2

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1-crow's ebony wings haiga Jan 20, 2013, 1-31 PM 2622x1966

This tanka art piece is the second in my Dream Time series of poems. To read the first poem in the series (on this blog), follow this link:

Dream Time 1

As you’ll notice the two poems are quite different in style and content, but I’ve grouped them together in Dream Time since both were written while poised on that slender edge of dreaming into another time and place. 

 

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A Special Word of Thanks:

A big thank you to my dear husband, Ritchie D. Kendall, who took this photograph on a hill in Greenwich in 2013 when we were living in London. 

 

Library of Congress Japanese woodprint

Crow on a Willow Branch, Japanese woodprint, Library of Congress woodprint