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
This is an old poem that was originally posted in the early days of this blog, back in 2015. My writing lately has come to a standstill, but rereading things written a while ago is often a way to trigger a creative response. (Let’s hope it works.)
The poem was written when we were living in London for a spring term with university students who were studying abroad. Wonderful memories of that group who are now fully grown and probably leading interesting lives.
We live in Chapel Hill, North Carolina in a beautiful rural development that is filled with gardens and trees. Our single acre plot is divided into flowers, vegetables, invading weeds and cultivated trees. The back half of our acre is woodland and beyond that runs a small railroad track that is used for a daily single train that carries coal to the university nearby. Sounds are important. In winter we can hear a distant passenger train at night. In summer it’s blocked by all the greenery. Chapel Hill is truly verdant as is the nearby town of Hillsborough. Our trees are a mixture of hardwoods (oak, hickory, beech and evergreens (mostly loblolly pines but a few small cedars and hollies). Our beautiful Camellias bring winter color and our small (hand-dug) pond delights us with frogs serenading one another. Southern summers are never quiet. Katydids and Cicadas sing during the hottest part of the year, and all sorts of songbirds visit as we work in the garden or sit on the screened porch.
One of my favorite parts of living here is listening to the trees blow. Whether a storm is coming or not, the very tall trees have a life of their own as they blow and move. It is quite often a very sacred sound.
The trees today brought to mind this ten year old poem for me to reread (and now, to repost).
Questions was originally published on this blog on June 19, 2015.
Ten years ago and still the same questions arise.
I hope you enjoyed reading this “oldie” today.
.
A tanka published in
Gusts No. 40, Contemporary Tanka, Canada,
fall/winter 2024
sea birds
ride the thermals
beyond steep chalk cliffs—
I wonder what they hear
in the swirling wind
shape-shifting
in my dream, I leap
and run with graceful gazelles
able now to outpace
all that awaits
.
.
A tanka published in
Gusts No. 40, Contemporary Tanka, Canada,
Fall/winter 2024
Image by xi Serge from Pixabay
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?
Springtime in Verse is a series of blog posts inviting you to learn and gather around poetry with the Ackland. Today’s featured poet is Mary Kendall.
Mary has shared a selection of her tanka poems in celebration of the Museum’s current exhibition, Lotus Moon and Nandina Staff: The Art of Ōtagaki Rengetsu and Nakahara Nantenbō. Follow our blog throughout the month of April to enjoy more original works by celebrated North Carolina poets. We are so pleased to present to you this exhibition and the original works written by poets from the local community.
plum blossoms—
watching you
struggle for so long
I remember how brief
a season is
all those words
I wish I could forget . . .
the smoothness
of dark pebbles
clutched in my hand
from slabs
of common clay
delicate cups
that hold the scent
of jasmine tea
whistling wings
of Tundra swans
over the marshes
. . . what is this power
you hold over me
past the edge
of darkness, an owl swoops
and grabs a vole
. . . reckoning comes
at lightning speed
the pale twilight
of a hospital room
fading, fading
as you said
your last goodbyes
a soft rain falls
as you work in the garden …
what I’d give to read
the chapters of your life
you never share
stopping to study
fritillaries, tulips
and jonquils –
the sudden way
you take my hand
Mary Kendall lives in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. She is a retired reading teacher and the author of two books, A Giving Garden, a children’s poetry/photography book (co-authored with Debbie Suggs) and Erasing the Doubt, a chapbook of free verse (Finishing Line Press, 2015).
In 2023, her third book, The Last Camellia, will be published. It is a collection of both tanka and haiku as well as some haiga.
Mary has a poetry blog called A Poet in Time.
Having written poetry for many years, Mary fell in love with Japanese short form poetry about twelve years ago. Tanka is her great love, a form that feels most natural to her as a lyric and meditative poet, but she loves the challenge and discipline of writing haiku and senryu as well. She creates haiga and tankaand has published a good number of each. Her poetry has been published in many print and online journals such as The Heron’s Nest, Acorn, Modern Haiku, Presence, Blithe Spirit, Eucalypt, Kokako, Wild Plum Journal, A Hundred Gourds, Ribbons, Gusts, Skylark, Failed Haiku, hedgerow, Prune Juice, Under the Basho,and Rattle. Some of her poems have received various honors in poetry contests and one was nominated for the Pushcart Prize.
ABOUT THE EXHIBITION
Lotus Moon and Nandina Staff presents and contrasts the work of two major Japanese artists of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, taking its title from translations of their names. Ōtagaki Rengetsu (1791-1875) was a Buddhist nun who became very well known as an important poet focusing on the traditional wakaverse form, rendering her poems in elegant but strong calligraphy on paper and on ceramics that she often formed herself; Nakahara Nantenbō (1839-1925) was an influential and strict Zen Master famous for his energetically and expressively brushed calligraphy and paintings.
Published in the Spring/Summer 2023 issue of Ribbons,
the Journal of the American Tanka Society
A Tanka Sequence by Mary Kendall
At Giverny
Sunday drive
from Paris
to Giverny . . .
anticipation
half the delight
we stroll through
Monet’s small village
the brilliance of greens
tints of lilac, silver
& old rose
his beloved home
full of color
& memories of children
playing, voices
long forgotten
all these years
together, your steps
in time with mine –
the unexpected scent
of old damask roses
stopping to study
fritillaries, tulips
& jonquils,
you reach out
& take my hand
soon we are adrift
in a huddle of lilac blue
stars of Agapanthus –
our lifetime together,
a flicker in time
~ ~
Author’s note: The French Impressionist painter, Claude Monet, lived with his family in a charming house in Giverny for over forty years. While the house is quite interesting to visit, it is Monet’s beautiful gardens where most visitors want to wander. My husband and I visited Giverny in 2013, and our memories are deeply treasured by both of us.
I am still catching up with published poetry. Blithe Spirit is the publication of the British Haiku Society. They selected two haiku and two tanka of mine to publish in the winter issue.
Blithe Spirit Fall/Winter Issue 2022
1.
brevity
the ripeness
of a pear
2.
children
fragile as blossoms
learning to let go
3.
fragrant spices, each
with a story to tell,
a bit of this, dash of that
my pen moves as if
propelled by a stranger
4.
scent of beeswax
melting as we draw
invisible designs
on our pysanky eggs—
forgotten childhood
.
Three of my poems appeared in various poetry anthologies in 2022:
~
a brief sigh
as your scan is finished –
far above us
sunlight edges its way
through swift moving clouds
Tanka Society of America 2022 Anthology
~
in a pile on the floor
sand, swimsuits, towels
and a single sea star . . .
how did such beauty slip
unseen into my life
Linda Jeanette Ward Anthology 2022
(An anthology in memory of the late tanka poet,
Linda Jeanette Ward.)
~
broken ice on the river –
fragmented memories
now rise up
British Haiku Society
Members’ Anthology 2022
Theme: “Water”
~
stinging nettles –
things that were said
I can’t forget
Published in Kokaku, Summer/Fall 2022
~
a tiny fawn dead
by the side of the road –
I close my eyes & imagine
all those children lost
in Ukraine strikes
~
Image by meineresterampe from Pixabay
~
having made it
halfway across, halfway back
I stop and pause
wondering which way
I really want to go
~
Published in Eucalypt 32 Tanka, May 2022 Issue
~
Tight-Rope Walker by Jean Louis Forain, c. 1885, Art Institute of Chicago
This tanka was inspired by a painting of a tightrope walker:
Tight Rope Walker by Jean Louis Forain, The Art Institute of Chicago
~
Presence #72, Spring 2022
.
winter birds crack seeds
& feast on blocks of suet –
my long morning is spent
polishing old pieces
of silver we rarely use
.
.
Photo by Stauffers of Kissel Hill
.
.
.
with ruins, rubble
and death on the news,
we learn their names—
Mariupol & Lviv,
Bucha and Donbas
.
.
image after image of
bombed out buildings and corpses –
far away in my corner, prayers
& more prayers that you will
always rise from the ashes
.
.
Image by bookdragon from Pixabay
Brass Bell March 2022, Theme: Things That Make Us Happy
.
a bit unkempt
this cottage garden,
my inner life
.
And now, here is the third tanka published in GUSTS, no. 34, Contemporary Tanka, Fall/Winter 2021.
so much silence
during the pandemic year
now punctuated by news
of your cancer—
the silence deepens
.
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
In the latest issue, GUSTS no. 34, Contemporary Tanka, Fall/Winter 2021, I am lucky enough to have three tanka published. I’ve read through the whole journal twice so far to enjoy the excellent submissions from such a wide variety of poets. Paper journals are especially nice in that you have them at hand when you need something good to read.
Here is one of the tanka I wrote:
growing old together
we make light of losing
thoughts or words –
even now I fall in love
with you again
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
GUSTS: Contemporary Tanka 33 (Tanka Canada)
tongue tripping
in the Provençal patisserie
I shyly order my first
macarons au marrons
in French
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
Campanula sp, Blue Bellflower. – Watercolour by Greta Mulligan (Australia)
This haiga appeared on Daily Haiga on March 23, 2016. I would like to thank my dear friend, Sheppy Vann, for allowing me to use her beautiful photograph for this piece.
Here is the link to the original: http://www.dailyhaiga.org/haiga-archives/1805/-fall-s-footrpints-by-mary-kendall-usa
Another joy and honor this week–my first time having haiku appear in Brass Bell, a publication that is edited by the incomparable Zee Zehava. This issue was done with International Women’s Day (on March 8) in mind. In the editor’s own words:
I urge you to visit Brass Bell (also here on WordPress) and subscribe to it. Be sure to read the back issues for some excellent poetry.
My three haiku in this issue are below:
If you have a favorite, please do let me know. I’m always curious what readers think or respond to.
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
From the window
I watch the cardinal
shuck a sunflower seed,
and, beak to beak,
like a passionate kiss,
he passes it to her,
his paler partner.
I imagine then
that I see the gleam
in his lusty eye.
Note on Photograph: I can find no other attribution for this photograph other than it was taken in Woods Hole, Massachusetts in 2014. It has appeared in a number of online birding sites. My thanks to the anonymous (but talented) photographer for capturing this tender moment.
This morning I woke up knowing a change was in the air. With intermitent gusts of wind, my garden feels different. From my porch where I sit writing this, I hear cardinals talking to one another in soft chirpy sounds, not full song. A nuthatch scampers up and down the tree trunks hoping to find a tasty insect for its mid-morning snack. What is clearer though is the background sound–the small insects that hum and buzz in notes I can’t clearly discern. All I hear is a constant high pitched sound–but it is a soft sound, not the commanding songs the cicadas sing. A chickadee now scolds someone, probably my dog who is suddenly interested in wandering in our back woods.
The breeze comes and goes. Wind chimes sing their beautiful songs. Leaves shudder and flow in the wind, then settle down to stillness. A large robin sits in the birdbath drinking in the water, probably for the last time before it makes its long migration down to southern Florida. Now a flock of crows jeers at something, most likely the red-tailed hawk that lives nearby. And since I’ve sat here long enough, a single butterfly sips from the last flowers of the purple buddleiah bush. It is a yellow swallowtail and probably the very last one I will see this year. There have been no others all week. A female cardinal visits the other bird bath. Luckily these beautiful red birds don’t migrate from here. They will stay all winter long, and I will put birdseed out for them each day.
Autumn has always been my favorite season since I was a little girl. I grew up in the northern climate of Buffalo, New York where the lake winds brought the strong Canadian coolness and fall was often upon us in early September. Not so here down south. Here, North Carolina weather can change in an hour. We can have this first taste of fall and tomorrow might bring back the heat of summer.
Life in the United States changes with this season since children return to school, vacations are pretty much over, and everyone settles in. I find myself cooking soups once again. Last night I made Italian Wedding Soup, a perfectly delicious way to welcome the change in seasons.
Fall or autumn? I grew up calling it ‘fall’ and with the obvious falling of leaves, that word makes good sense, but the poetic side of me loves the word ‘autumn.’ I love saying the word, hearing it, feeling it on the tongue. Autumn is delicious! And ‘autumnal’ is divine. Who can resist the beauty of this season? Not me.
Here are three other poems–two tanka and one haiku– to welcome this special season and day of the autumnal equinox.
daylight
and nighttime
in a slow dance—
tomorrow one
will lead
~
~
autumnal equinox…
the moment when day
matches night
~
~
autumn’s equinox
when time is equal—
if only one day
people
could be like this
~
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.
Grief, by Iosatel, The Obvious and Hidden blog, (c) 2014
1.
only the bereaved know
they needn’t speak in whispers,
grief is never
completely silenced
2.
rush of water
a broken branch drifts by
what will be left?
3.
Unending days of darkness
that never let you forget.
4.
Saturated, as if the clouds
had wrung themselves out
all at once, watching what
would then ensue
5.
sitting at the window
watching the rain
despondent days
of unexhausted sadness
trying to let go
6.
forgetting you
was never an option
7.
grief exhausts
but holds on,
rain continues
to fall
8.
thirty-five years and still I mourn you,
sometimes waking and imagining you there
9.
darkness deepens
into the black of night
lightning signals
thunder cracks,
but it is the loss of you
who took your life
that makes me ask
why it had to be
~~~
My Note of Thanks to the photographer, Iosatel, for his beautiful picture, Grief, which was first posted on his blog, The Obvious and the Hidden on 4/11/14. This photograph is copyrighted (c) 2014 by the artist himself.
Weaving Light 6 (c) 2012 by Karen McRae
1:
dusk winds weave
seed pods in silken strings
spirits dancing
2:
morning’s breath
slips by so silently
a shiver of frost
3:
perhaps a portent
of what winter will bring
this woven white light
4:
just as a cloud forms
and suddenly dissipates
so a thought begins
Weaving Light 13 (c) 2012 by Karen McRae
These beautiful photographs of Goat’s-beard seed heads are by the very talented Karen McRae. They appear on her blog: The Frayed Edges of Waking August 12, 2012 by Karen McRae) http://drawandshoot.me/2012/08/12/the-frayed-edges-of-waking/
Many thanks, Karen, for allowing me to use your breathtaking photos that inspired these four small poems.
~ Mary ~
Weaving Light 11 (c) 2012 by Karen McRae
Today is the first day of autumn, and for my writing practice in the next few weeks I’ll begin a series of autumn or fall poems. This is my favorite season, my soul season. I’ve done a few different types of haiku ranging from traditional 17 syllables to a poem in a single line. Do you have a favorite?
1.
biting into a Victoria plum, such guilty pleasure
2.
spent blossoms–
the last swallowtail
sips alone
3.
the season’s first soup
almost ritually cooked
stirs our senses
4.
sweet windfall apples…
bruised memories
autumn of long ago
Modern English language haiku are not always seventeen syllables. A haiku can be many things, but always it is a brief poem with a strong image that evokes a season and a moment of time captured simply in lyrical language. Scroll to the bottom of today’s blog to find a list of essential qualities of haiku.
The following list from the wonderful journal, Heron’s Nest, lists important qualities that make a haiku.
Here are some qualities we find essential to haiku:
A Poet in Time 