On Rewriting a Poem

Posted on November 7, 2025 by Mary Kendall

{Sometimes old poems ask to be reworked. This is a small example of just that.}

On Growing Old Together, A Love Poem

Will you scatter me over water
or throw me to the winds,
letting me float away?

Will your ashes mingle
with mine one day
when you too are gone . . .

Ashes to ashes . . .

Will you take my hand again
and hold me close against the wind?
Will your eyes always smile with mine?

Dust to dust . . .

Will our hearts travel as one
no matter where that might be?
Will our love be forever?

Two stars together.

November 2025

This is a love poem written for my husband. We met in 1974, fifty-one years ago. This poem originally appeared on this blog in 2015, but I was never really happy with the ending. It never felt “right” to me. Those of you who are writers will know the feeling. You will know that some poems are meant to pop up again for you to rework it until it really is complete, and this is what I have done.

Growing older together has been a gift to both of us. We have shared so much and grown so much. Love is the one constant in the equation we call life. This poem is dedicated to my beloved husband and to all who have loved and been loved.

I’ve recorded myself reading the poem should you care to listen. Just click on the button below and give it a half a minute to begin.

A tiny fawn, dead… (Ukraine tanka)

Posted on October 24, 2022 by Mary Kendall

Published in Kokaku, Summer/Fall 2022

a tiny fawn dead
by the side of the road –
I close my eyes & imagine
all those children lost
in Ukraine strikes

Image by meineresterampe from Pixabay

Winter birds

Posted on October 4, 2022 by Mary Kendall

Presence #72, Spring 2022

winter birds crack seeds
& feast on blocks of suet –
my long morning is spent
polishing old pieces
of silver we rarely use

Photo by Stauffers of Kissel Hill

Passing cloud … (tanka)

Posted on July 9, 2021 by Mary Kendall

Tanka Café @ Ribbons
Winter 2021: Volume 17, Number 1

it isn’t a matter
of distance for me –
I learned by age five
how to slip deep inside
that passing cloud

Tanka poets are always proud to have something published in Ribbons, the journal of the Tanka Society America. It is one of the finest journals out there and it’s devoted to tanka and tanka-related work. Besides the main part of Ribbons, each issue has the Tanka Café, edited by Michael McLintock. Michael is an outstanding poet and was the editor of Ribbons for a long time. For many years he has focused on the Tanka Café, a favorite place for many of us. He puts out a prompt for each issue and poets write to that prompt. He gives us great leeway in how we interpret the prompt. This issue had the theme: Escapes. A great prompt indeed! The poems selected were wonderfully varied and always great to read. I interpreted the theme in my own way of course. It has to do with imagination and how early we can learn to escape to it when we need to get away from things in our real life. My thanks to Michael McLintock for selecting this tanka.