Part 2:
Prune Juice, A Journal of Senryu, Kyoka,
Haibun and Haiga,
Issue 26 – November 2018
Four Senryu:
reproach –
finding a way back
from heated words
~
overanalyzing–
the smell of wood smoke
on the wind
~
winter walk
learning to negotiate
what can’t be seen
~
the house
where I was born
weeds & more weeds
Photograph by Marina Shemesh
My first time in this journal.
Haiku Canada Review, October 2018
hospice window
cherry blossoms
fade and fall
Three tanka published in one my very favorite journals.
GUSTS No. 28, Contemporary Tanka
(fall/winter 2018)
pounding rains
& the peonies are lost –
how did I miss
your pallor, your reticence
that last day?
turning from pale gold
to dusky violet
our last embrace
so certain
so final
rain patter
on windows –
just when it seems
the darkness is over
it all begins again
Three senryu and one haiga appeared in Prune Juice, Journal of Senryu, Kyoka, Haibun & Haiga, Issue 25, July 2018.
wild apple–
one bite is all
it took
inertia–
a thin coat of dust
on his burial urn
cloud cover–
darkness brewing
in daddy’s words
My thanks to editor, Steve Hodge.
Cover Art: Happy Monk by Jerry Dreesen
This poem was selected as an Editor’s Choice (EC) – Haiku in cattails by Geethanjali Rajan, haiku editor of this journal, whose comments are given here:
Published: cattails: The Official Journal of the United Haiku and Tanka Society October 2017 Issue
Tanka by Mary Kendall (c) 2017
faded numbers
tattooed on your arm
I slip back in silence
.
~Mary Kendall~
Published in Presence 58 July 2017
.
.
Back story on this tanka. In 1972 I visited friends in Israel. As a tourist, I was eager to see the historical sites, one of which was Masada, site of a group suicide where a Jewish community was surrounded by Roman soldiers. The Jews chose suicide rather than be taken as captives. As I stood high up on the hilly site with other visitors, it was very, very quiet. It was after all a sacred place. An older man stood next to me, and I happened to glance at him also looking out at where the soldiers would have been waiting, hoping to starve out the isolated Jewish community. I noticed on his arm, faded numbers–numbers, of course, indicating he’d been captive in a Concentration Camp. The poignancy of him being there has stayed with me for over forty years. Never again, please Lord, shall we do such things to our fellow men.
Both pictures are from travel sites to and in Israel. Masada is located in the Judean desert, very close to the Dead Sea. Visiting these sites is like stepping back two thousand years. I am so grateful for having had this opportunity to visit.
