Here is the second of three tanka published in GUSTS, no. 34, Contemporary Tanka, Fall/Winter 2021.
The pandemic has made all of us look at life and death differently and perhaps more clearly.
one day when I am
long gone from the world,
you’ll find me here
& there among scarlet leaves
or blue damselflies
words grow muted
and hearing diminished –
I begin to tiptoe
along the lonely curve
of inner silence
Title Unspecified, by Jean “Hans” Arp (French, b. German), 1950s
This tanka was published in The Ekphrastic Review: writing and art on art and writing on September 13, 2016. The journal is edited by Lorette C. Luzajic as part of the Ekphrastic 20 Challenge.
To visit the site, please click on this link: http://www.ekphrastic.net/ekphrastic/a-tanka-by-mary-kendall
Another haiku published in Wild Plum, a haiku journal, 2:2 Fall & Winter 2016:
In Frameless Sky 4, editor Christine L. Villa paired my haiku/senryu with a another lovely photograph of Irena Iris Szewczyk. My thanks go to Irena Iris Szewczyk and to Christine L. Villa, editor of Frameless Sky.
Words by Mary Kendall
Photograph by Irena Iris Szewczyk
Frameless Sky 4, Summer 2016
To listen to me read this tanka, click on the link below:
Depression is not very pretty. Nor is it very kind. It has many faces, and it comes and goes as it pleases. It can affect almost anyone. If you are someone who has struggled with depression, you know it never goes away completely but hides, waiting for the right moment to reappear. It isn’t something to be lightly dismissed in yourself or in others who suffer from it. Who hasn’t seen the devastating effect it can have on a vulnerable person? I’ve struggled with it, and I’ve certainly known many others who were also affected by it.
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Watching someone you love battle depression is never easy. It isn’t easily “fixed,” even in this age of modern medicine. Therapy and medicines are there, and for some people they help so much, but for others, less so. Compassion, patience, unconditional love and presence are the lifelines we can offer…to someone else and to ourselves.
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To listen to me read this poem, please click on the link below. It will take a minute to begin.
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Compassion
Taking on your pain was something
I tried to do, like slipping on your
jacket, pushing an arm in and then
another, pulling it tight around myself,
hoping that by feeling what you do,
it would diminish your pain.
No matter how hard I tried, it wasn’t a fit.
Your depression fell around me in loose
folds, the sadness sagging around my heart.
Besides, it would leave you cold, open
to the fickle winds that blew your way.
Compassion was first published in Erasing the Doubt by Mary Kendall
(Finishing Line Press © 2015)
A Poet in Time 