spring surprise—
flooding the porch
with endless sweet songs
a spunky wren peeks
out of a hanging fern
This tanka was published in Ribbons, Spring/Summer 2026: Volume 22, Number 1 in “Tanka Hangout”
Photo by Julie Zickefoose on Blogspot
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
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?
~ ~ ~
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
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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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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
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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
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
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.
One of two tanka appearing Eucalypt: A Tanka Journal, Issue 28, 2020
in the attic I find
your small Wellies
with little frog faces—
oh, those happy puddles
when you were only three
Note: We lived near Hampstead Heath in NW London for a full academic year, 1989-90, with our (then) three year old son, Adam. Oh, how he loved rain puddles and stomping in them in his little green Wellies. Getting exercise each day was never a problem with a child who loved the outdoors no matter what the weather. This poem is for him.
Prune Juice, Journal of Senryu, Kyoka, Haibun & Haiga
Issue #30, March 2020
both parents
dead at sixty one –
imagine my surprise
the day I turned
sixty-two
A Poet in Time 