The Heron’s Nest
Volume XXII, Number 1: March 2020
snow melt
a trickle of caribou
comes to an end
Category Archives: poems of loss
Widowhood
Published in FROGPOND, Volume 43:1, Winter 2020:
widowhood
day blurs into evening
into night . . .
This poem is dedicated to my dear sister-in-law, Paulett Brylinski, who lost her beloved husband, Jimmy, in December 2017. Watching her learn to cope and live with grief has taught me so much about courage and love.
Woods Hole, MA – 3/30/14
Haiku Holiday turns 40
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)
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)
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)
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
A Poet in Time 