My thanks to Michael McClintock, editor of the Tanka Café in Ribbons, the Journal of the Tanka Society of America. The prompt was poems of spring and summer. Here is mine:
Tag Archives: remembrance
Who Am I?
Who Am I?
I am just a wisp,
a vision caught
at the edge of your eye.
I am just a thought,
a touch on the arm
you almost don’t feel.
I am just a memory
pulled back down to earth.
I am just an image
of what could be
but is not.
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To hear me reading this poem, simply click on the link below. Wait a few seconds for it to begin.
This poem originally appeared in The Aroostook Review, May 2006
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Note: the rainbow picture is my own, but the beautiful purple flower is by Yolanda Litton, one of my favorite photographers.
Two Tanka slip into Ribbons
I’ve had the good fortune of having two tanka published in RIBBONS, the journal of the Tanka Society of America: Ribbons–Spring/Summer–2015, Volume 11, Number 2.
lost in the pages
of a book my mother loved–
a sly narrator
speaks volumes of truth
while skirting the end
Tanka Cafe, Ribbons–Spring/Summer, Volume 11, Number 2, 2015
what I thought was a bird
flew past
casting no shadow–
I wonder
if you are near
Ribbons–Spring/Summer, Volume 11, Number 2, 2015
It is always a thrill for any poet to open up a journal and find her/his own poem nestled in among those of gifted writers. The truly excellent online journals of poetry in both tanka and haiku are really schools of learning for me. I go there to read, to fall in love with poems, and to learn from the very best writers. There is no better way to learn. Read, read, write. So, on the rare occasion, one of my poems makes it into those pages (paper or virtual), my heart is filled with joy.
June Haiku 2
weathered wood—
memories of youth
drifting away
Old Boat ~ Photograph by Mike Keville, (c) 2015
The theme of old, worn wood (see June Haiku 1) continues in this poem. Amazing how beautiful things retain their magic despite age.
My thanks to photographer, Mike Keville, for allowing me to use his gorgeous boat photograph for this haiku. The textures and colours of this photo inspire many poems.
fallen petals… (haiga)
Irisation: A Lesson
Photography © 2015 by Farnaz Mojab Soheili
A Lesson
For just one moment
the sky stopped time,
and we gazed upward
to where an angel
lit the clouds
like a row of pure white candles,
and the flames flickered
in many hues
and spoke to us in sweet silence,
reminding us that life is brief,
a momentary blur.A lesson we forgot.
Note: My thanks go to my friend, Farnaz Mojab Soheili, for allowing me to use her wonderful photograph of this magnificent cloud rainbow that appeared for just a moment. As a teacher who was with a group of fourth grade students on the playground, the cloud phenomenon was pointed out to her by a student. She looked up in time to see it shift into this beautiful formation. A rainbow in the clouds is called iridescence or irisation: “When parts of clouds are thin and have similar size droplets, diffraction can make them shine with colours like a corona. In fact, the colours are essentially corona fragments. The effect is called cloud iridescence or irisation, terms derived from Iris the Greek personification of the rainbow…. Iridescence is seen mostly when part of a cloud is forming because then all the droplets have a similar history and consequently have a similar size.”
[http://www.atoptics.co.uk/droplets/irid1.htm]
A Poet in Time 