Redlights, Volume 17, No. 1, January 2021
Photography by Autumn Mott Rodeheaver
whirlwinds of scarlet
and ochre leaves
flit across the square –
days of self-isolation spent
learning to slow down
Whirlwinds (tanka)
Category Archives: tanka
a red-bellied woodpecker (tanka)
Redlights, Volume 17, No. 1, January 2021
a red-bellied woodpecker
flaunts his drumming skills—
below his tree I pause
to feel his thunder,
to hear his words
ghosting myself . . . (tanka)
Ribbons 16:3 (fall 2020)
ghosting myself
by looking away . . .
the mirror
no longer a friend
I care to see
(c) Mary Kendall, 2020
Note: This pretty hand mirror was crafted in Germany and sold on Etsy.com.
Prayer (a tanka)
So careful a gardener, he patiently weeds between the pebbles.
This tanka is dedicated to my dear husband, Ritchie Kendall.
each day you kneel
and work in the garden
I can think of nothing
more prayer-like
than this
Published in the Tanka Society of America Members’ 2020 Anthology.
Still the roses bloom…(a tanka)
.
the chiming clock
begins to wind down . . .
five months of quarantine
yet still the roses bloom
and red birds sing
.
This tanka was published in October, but obviously was written in early summer. We are now nine months into this pandemic. Writing is a wonderful relief as we isolate ourselves. Like so many poets, I find my writing has been changed by the pandemic.
cattails:
The Official Journal of the United Haiku and Tanka Society, October 2020 issue
Tanka No. 3: The sudden silence
Here is the third of my three tanka published in the latest issue of Gusts no. 32, Fall/Winter 2020:
even the crows
are quiet now . . .
the sudden silence
that morning snow
brings
A Poet in Time 