Poor brown moth … (three tanka)

 

 

Three tanka published last February in the lovely journal, GUSTS:

Gusts No. 38  Contemporary Tanka, Canada,
Fall/Winter 2024  

 

 

 

Compliments of “Draw Botanical”

 

a day lily blooms
for a single day
this brevity
a wonder to some,
unsettling to others

 

 

 

 

 

 

poor brown moth
trapped in a web
      the more you flutter
the tighter those
fine strands pull

 

 

the art aisle holds
such soft sable brushes
wedge, round, pointed, flat
patiently waiting
to adorn my words

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ah, sweet memory . . . (tanka)

 

 

 Ribbons 31 Fall 2023
(Journal of the Tanka Society of America)

 

 

 

 

Italian gelato names
slip off our tongues
so happily—
sweet memory
of that day in Florence

 

 

 

Hai fame?

 

 

 

 

Soaring voices (three tanka)

Photo by stein egil liland: https:::www.pexels.com:photo:mountain-under-aurora-borealis-9636388:

~ ~ ~

Three tanka published in
Gusts No. 37 Contemporary Tanka, Canada,
Spring/Summer 2023  

~

I grow old now
and dream of a journey
I will never take
. . . the aurora borealis
dances, but does it sing?

~

the emptiness
of losing a friend—
never understanding
what I did or
what you felt I did

~

such soaring voices
      pure soprano & alto notes
in a boys’ choir
each singer’s gift destined
to change course

~ ~ ~

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Notes:

(1) All tanka by Mary Kendall © 2023
(2) Photo by stein egil liland
      https///www.pexels.com/photo/mountain-under-aurora-borealis-9636388/.jpg

Catching Up with Ribbons (tanka)

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Ribbons, the journal of the Tanka Society of America is a favorite of all tanka poets. It’s always an honor to have poems accepted for publication. Here are some from the last two issues.

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Ribbons Winter 2023: Volume 19, Number 1

 

crisp golden leaves
ready themselves for flight
. . . I was just five
when you walked out
and left us all behind

 

Also, in Ribbons’ Tanka Hangout:

winter winds
wildly whip limbs
boughs & branches –
come closer and hear
my heart hum along

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Plus a collaboration with Christine L. Villa–her beautiful art and my tanka that was inspired by it:

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WINTER RIBBONS Mary Kendall thinner font

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Ribbons Fall 2022: Volume 18, Number 3

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the unmistakable scent
of ripe Anjou pears –
remembering
his low voice as he read
Verlaine aloud

lovely yellow pear

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‘Tanka Studio’ in Ribbons Fall 2022

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speaking in an even tone
that gives nothing away,
your inscrutable gaze
was always a challenge
for me to decipher

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All poems (c)by Mary Kendall

Spring’s soft greening (tanka)

Like so many other people, the year and a half pandemic has thrown my sense of time way off. I’m so far behind in posting newly published poems on this blog that I find myself now playing catch up.  I am both honored and happy to have had such fine journals select some of my work to publish in 2021. 

 

both of us relieved
we made it to this side
of the pandemic –
falling back in love
with spring’s soft greening

 

Published in Ribbons, Tanka Café, Spring 2021

 

 

burning anger

Moonbathing, Issue 23, Fall/Winter 2020

 

 

hot roasted nuts

heaped into a paper cone –

all that burning anger

you hold onto

so tightly

 

 

 

 

Photograph by Monika Topolko

As an aside, I am realizing my age is showing. Do young people today even know about folks roasting chestnuts (or other nuts) and buying a brown paper cone full of piping hot nuts to eat on the street? I first came across this in Istanbul when I was young. The scent, heat, taste on a chilly autumn afternoon was one of those moments that has stayed with me all my life. Europeans had this custom, but does anyone still do this? The fragrance was so tempting.