Year-end leaves

year-end leaves

rotten potatoes

misspoken words—

assorted things I fling

deep into the woods

—kernels ("featured poet"), Summer 2013

H A P P Y  N E W  Y E A R !

No pear tree

A repeat from last winter:

no pear tree
no partridge either . . .
I wake up 
to a chill on my face
a million crows-a-cawing

Who knows, maybe you'll see this a third time too. ;)

Childless, yet ...

Excuse me, time for a little holiday cheesiness now. We decided to give Santa a thrill one year long ago. I'm the older one, on the right, with the puffy hair. 

childless, yet ...

memories of crimson suits
and ermine beards
..........drift to the surface
of my snowy mind

—Ribbons, Winter 2006, Vol. 2, No. 2

B E S T  G R E E T I N G S  O F  T H E  S E A S O N 

A nativity

a nativity

small enough to fit

in a matchbox ...

I turn the key

to play Silent Night

—GUSTS, #18, Fall/Winter 2013

Where Franz Gruber composed the beloved song Silent Night

During our Danube trip last month, I perked up as I heard the announcement that we were passing by Arnsdorf (Austria), where schoolteacher, church caretaker, and organist Franz Gruber composed the melody for Silent Night. When I was around 13, one of my grandmothers gave me a small book about Gruber and the history of that familiar Christmas carol. So, we quickly clicked away with our cameras. 

P.S. See the preceding post for a picture of the music box described above.

Tiny skaters

tiny skaters

twirling round a pond . . .
undiscovered
until now, this world
inside a music box

—Skylark, 1:1, Summer 2013

Pictured above, the miniature music box I bought last December—from a shop in Illinois that I visited with my sister and her kids. In the tanka, though, I'm actually describing one of the other similar music boxes they had for sale; maybe I should buy it next. I wonder if my fascination with things delicate and diminutive will ever leave me.

Toy iron

toy iron,

miniature kitchen ...
who'd have known
my penchant for housework
would end with childhood?

—GUSTS, #17, Spring/Summer 2013

Sequence: At Oso Bay

At Oso Bay

wildlife refuge—  

a friendly welcome sign

plus a warning

      human visitors

      under surveillance

waterbirds

by the hundreds

at the bay's edge

my camera and I

trying to blend in

how the world

can change in an instant:

white wings

of a pelican

low over my shoulder

this mussed hair

dampened by drizzle;

on the bank

of a waterway

a heron preens its feathers

my skin's pallor

in the light of home . . .

for my profile

I choose a photo

of a roseate spoonbill

Corpus Christi, Texas—named "America's Birdiest City" for 10 straight years.

—Ribbons, Spring/Summer 2013

Tanka sequences: It's generally accepted that each unit in a sequence of tanka should be able to stand alone reasonably well; in other words, it should make reasonable sense if extracted from the sequence and read by itself. So, the various tanka in a sequence don't function in quite the same way as verses do in a longer (for example, free verse) poem. 

English-language tankaists continue to explore sequences. I tend to think of sequences as involving progression or development and using links, even if subtle, from one tanka to the next. Readers might be interested in checking out an article by M. Kei on sets (a generic term for groupings of tanka, including loosely organized ones) and sequences in the recent Fall issue of Ribbons, the Tanka Society of America's journal.