Presence Issue 68, November 2020
winter nights—
dreaming of blackbirds
on snow
My thanks to the editors at Presence for publishing this haiku.
Category Archives: winter poetry
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
Ice ferns . . . (tanka)
Presence Issue #62, 2018
scraping ice ferns
off the windows
of our old jalopy –
such fragile beauty
soon pushed aside
Photo by eddy on ‘Unsplash’
Dreaming of blackbirds (3 haiku & a tanka)
A tiny soul . . . (tanka)
Ribbons, Winter 2018: Volume 14, Number 1
Tanka Café Winter 2018 ~ weather prompt
I was born
in a winter storm,
a tiny soul
almost lost
in a sea of white
Winter garden (a haiku)
This haiku is my first poem in the journal, Modern Haiku.
.
winter garden–
a lone crab apple
holds fast
Modern Haiku
Volume 48:1
Winter-Spring 2017
Watching my hair dance . . . (haiga)
Using a photo I took and two different art programs on my iPad, a new picture appeared that was perfect for this senryu.
This haiga was published in:
Failed Haiku, A Journal of English Senryu, Issue 16, April 2017
First hard frost… (a haiku)
A new haiku published in Wild Plum, a haiku journal, 2:2 Fall & Winter 2016:
Woodsmoke…
This haiku has just appeared in The Heron’s Nest, a distinguished journal of haiku. For me, as a first time poet in this journal, it is a truly great honor for which I’m thankful.
My poem is on page 11 of The Heron’s Nest: http://www.theheronsnest.com/March2016/haiku-p11.html
winter night—
the curl of woodsmoke
takes flight
I hope some of you will click the link to The Heron’s Nest to read the full issue of wonderful haiku from around the world.
Note: photo is in the public domain (found linked with many sources online)
Dream Time 2
This tanka art piece is the second in my Dream Time series of poems. To read the first poem in the series (on this blog), follow this link:
As you’ll notice the two poems are quite different in style and content, but I’ve grouped them together in Dream Time since both were written while poised on that slender edge of dreaming into another time and place.
A Special Word of Thanks:
A big thank you to my dear husband, Ritchie D. Kendall, who took this photograph on a hill in Greenwich in 2013 when we were living in London.
Crow on a Willow Branch, Japanese woodprint, Library of Congress woodprint
Small Poems for a Cold Winter Day
In my last posting here, I put up a new haiga that was just published in cattails, January 2016, the journal of the United Haiku and Tanka Society, but I was really very fortunate this time round in having three other poems published in the same issue: a haiku, a senryu, and a tanka.
cattails, January 2016, haiku, p. 8:
winter—
each day closing in
on itself
cattails, January 2016, tanka, p. 4:
chased away
by a gang of crows
the red-tailed hawk—
being different
is never easy
cattails, January 2016, senryu, p. 9:
black Friday—
the vultures circle
round and round
Winter Night Sky (a tanka)
Starry Sky (c) Kayaga
how could the moon
show its face
without light
…how could the stars
sing us songs?
Fly me to the moon…haiku for the season
Full Moon of the Winter Solstice (c) 2010 Martin Liebermann
As I post this, it is the morning of the winter solstice of 2015. Where I live in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, the winter solstice officially happens tonight at 11:49 pm, EST. Wherever YOU are, it will happen at a different hour or perhaps the same. Readers of this blog come from all over the world–one of the joys in blogging is seeing the list of countries of readers–and I love imagining the moon going through its magical phases for each of you. Tonight, the solstice. Later this week, a full moon. What more could we want?
These are some of my earliest haiku:
WINTER MOON HAIKU
First published on Poets Online (c) Mary Kendall
Later used as lyrics in “Winter Moon” by Paul Carey, a piece for women’s chorus in (c) 2011.
night snow
boughs dreaming
of first blossoms
Fog filled woods~
even the winter moon
has lost its way
a winter walk
footprints
tell no tales
the blue moon
silently closes the door
upon the year
One Snow Haiku
Snowfall by Debbie Nemer Suggs
Swiftly falling snow
Our footprints disappear ~
Were we ever there?
I would like to thank my dear friend, Debbie Suggs, for the use of her beautiful snowfall photograph (c) 2015. Debbie and I wrote and published a book, A Giving Garden, in 2009. Her beautiful photographs have always inspired me.
Ginger Tea
1.
curls of steam
a pot of ginger tea
fragrant this night
2.
silent crow …
holding tight in
winter wind
Crow on a Willow Branch, Japanese woodprint, Library of Congress
Due North: A Winter Poem
Due North © 2014 by Iosatel
There are nights in the winter
once the leaves have fallen away,
when sometimes I wake in the dark,
hearing the distant, plaintive sound
of a single train a few miles away
as it crosses over a country road
or maybe it’s to warn off deer
that pause too long on the track.
The train travels due north,
and in the blackness of the night
the train’s dark sounding
brings back fragmented images
of my childhood life up north.
North, where winter’s silver skies
are layered in clouds most
of the year, and where snow
begins to fall early and deep.
North, where my family lived
in the rust belt of Lake Erie,
where strong winds raced across
the lake with bone-chilling cold.
The lake effect meant snowstorms
that went on for hours, even days
on end. Times when all of us gathered
together happily, knowing school
would be cancelled the next day.
Night was peaceful back then.
In the morning, we’d make our
way through the thigh high snow
and help shovel the walk, leaving
tall tunnels of snow on either side.
Our boots would crunch on frozen
snow, fingers painfully cold, but
that never stopped us from a snowball
fight or playing king of the mountain,
or sledding, tumbling, rolling in snow,
or making lovely snow angels
all over the yard. Those were the
carefree days of childhood, when
we didn’t worry about time or the
future or much of anything.
And for a while the thick snow
continued to fall, covering the tracks
of cars, birds and anything else
that dared to wander outside
on those interminable winter days.
Now, no longer in the north,
I lie in bed remembering such
simple times, times of being together
as we coasted down the snow hills,
all six of us tucked in tightly together
until halfway down when the toboggan
shifted and just after the pull to the left,
we capsized, all of us scattered down the hill,
laughter ringing out so loud as we fell,
each of us ready to give it a go again.
Tobagganing in the Snow
My thanks to the photographer, Iosatel, for use of the photograph, Due North, which appeared on his blog, The Obvious and the Hidden, 03/11/2014
Back to Edinburgh
Back to Edinburgh
We walk through the hidden streets of this city,
The second day of spring and the wind gusts hard.
People stop and wince, cupping their ears for warmth.
The news said blustery winds up to 25 mph,
And it feels as if we might tumble down the street.
Looking for simple woolen hats to pull down
Over our frigid heads, we stop at a Royal Mile shop.
I select gray, and you opt for black. I am grateful
That your good felt hat is safe back at the hotel.
The street is so rich in history that it feels as if
It could reach out and grab us by the arms,
Pulling us down a small wynd or narrow close
That has a story to share,
And in the late afternoon gloaming,
We might be wind swept and turned around
Into some other time.
It could happen you know.
A Poet in Time 