Category Archives: poems of loss

Haiku Holiday turns 40

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The North Carolina Haiku Society hosts an all-day meeting on the last Saturday of each April. This year marked the 40th year of these days called “Haiku Holiday.” Each of the past 40 years has been hosted by one wonderful poet and woman, Jean Earnhardt

on Bolin Brook Farm, an old farmstead that has been in her family for 12 generations. Can you imagine opening up your home and garden annually to a large group of poets? Jean does so graciously and with a welcoming, inclusive attitude. Thank you, Jean!

 

“In honor of the 40th anniversary of Haiku Holiday, we read 40 haiku by current and past members of the North Carolina Haiku Society. Crystal Simone-Smith selected the poems and published them as a broadside.”  (Dave Russo, the NCHS website Editor)

 

The Broadside is so beautiful, and it’s an honor to be part of this. My two haiku are listed below. My thanks to Crystal for selecting this to be included.

 

Haiku Holiday, NCHS, 2019

40 Years, 40 Haiku: A Broadside

 

 

dandelion—

more and more invisible

as I grow old

 

 

our country’s story

ever evolving

. . . fallen blossoms

 

 

Both haiku by Mary Kendall (c) 2019

 

War memorial (a haiku)

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As Memorial Day approaches, thoughts of all who have sacrificed for our country come to mind. There have been so many wars, so many skirmishes, so many of our service people posted to regions far away from their homeland. The work they do in times of war or in conflict is something that requires a level of courage I don’t have. Yet we can all pay them our deepest respects and honor those who have died as well as those who came home. They have made this country what it is.

 

This haiku was published in Frogpond 42.1, Winter 2019 (Haiku Society of North America)

 

 

war memorial

blue dragonflies

loop in tandem

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Loneliness . . . (three tanka)

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Blithe Spirit, Journal of the British Haiku Society,
Volume 28 Number 4, November 2018

 

Three tanka were published in Blithe Spirit this past November:

 

 

 Snow Landscape by Hans Braxmeier

 

 

winter woodland

bereft of birdsong 

           with your passing 

even clear days

are shadowed

 

 

Photo by Frantisek Krejci

 

 

together so long

we seem to finish

one another’s  sentences,

fluent in the pauses

of each other’s mind

 

 

 

Universe by Gerd Altmann

 

loneliness

comes and goes,

dancing around

my mind

with two left feet

 

 

 

 

 

finding a way back . . . (four Senryu)

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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

pale lichens on stone . . . (two haiga)

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Prune Juice, A Journal of Senryu, Kyoka, Haibun and Haiga,
Issue 26 – November 2018

 

~

 

photography by Mary Kendall
Highgate Cemetery, London

 

 

Photograph by Mary Kendall,
Blackwood Farm, Hillsborough, North Carolina

 

~

 

My deepest thanks to Steve Hodge, editor. This was his last issue as editor of Prune Juice. It has been a joy and a wonderful learning experience working with Steve as an editor. 

 

Cover art by Chase Gagnon (c) 2018

 

Here is the link to the full issue of this amazing journal. It includes the amazing prize winners of the Jane Reichhold Memorial Haiga Competition for 2018 (edited by Steve Hodge and Michael Rehling), pdf:   pj-26-rev

 website:  https://prunejuice.wordpress.com

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hospice window (a haiku)

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My first time in this journal.

 

Haiku Canada Review, October 2018

 

 

hospice window

cherry blossoms

fade and fall

 

heart in pink

Frayed feathers . . . (a haiku)

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Acorn: A Journal of Contemporary Haiku (issue 41), October 2018:

 

 

 

frayed feathers
beneath the dogwood tree


silence

bird-feather-13486506267nW