I’d like to share a tanka that is currently appearing in Ribbons, Tanka Cafe, Winter 2015
Junco, photo by Kathy Adams Clark
winter light
shadows linger low
behind us—
dark-eyed juncos
scurry past our feet
Juncos, photo by Brian Cunningham
This poem appeared in Ribbons, Tanka Cafe, Winter 2015
This is the publication of the American Tanka Society,
Haiga by Mary Kendall
This was written for a prompt on the spring equinox for a favorite small poem poetry group I belong to called “seize the poem.” I’m enjoying creating this mix of haiku and photography, and I think I finally got the words correctly balanced on the picture, so I’m sharing it here as well. The photo is my own taken in the sculpture garden of the Rodin Museum in Paris this month.
barely spring–
rowers churning water
silver slips away
Snowfall by Debbie Nemer Suggs
Swiftly falling snow
Our footprints disappear ~
Were we ever there?
I would like to thank my dear friend, Debbie Suggs, for the use of her beautiful snowfall photograph (c) 2015. Debbie and I wrote and published a book, A Giving Garden, in 2009. Her beautiful photographs have always inspired me.
Wild Water: Three Tanka
1.
throughout the long day
the wild water crashes
again and again—
memories of you silently
slip under water
2.
as evening comes
the tide begins to swell
in the empty sound,
one lone boat
longing to set sail
3.
foghorn rasping
deep and low—
a bleak song
of ships surrendering
to savage waves
(Photograph © 2014 by Harald Illsinger)
Frosted rosebud
caught in the night,
Awakening to the fog
of a December dawn.
This sweet pale rosebud
delicately iced over,
Thin slick of frost
lightly brushed on
As if an angel chose
to paint, capturing
The morning’s canvas
where season changes
To season, autumn
turning into winter,
Short days giving in
to long nights of silence
As your fragile calyx
gives you up to the day.
Many thanks to photographer Harald Illsinger for allowing me to use his beautiful photograph, ‘Frosty Morning,’ (c) 2014)
A Poet in Time 