Tanka Prose

The Art of Gift Giving

For so long, it seemed, when our monetary wealth consisted of no more than a few coins, the Christmas presents we gave our parents were handcrafted. Such as the repurposed plastic face cream jar decorated with a broken string of costume pearls—brainchild of my kindergarten teacher. The macaroni wreath I spray-painted green and gold according to another teacher's instructions. And the wreath my brother patiently fashioned from a plain wire hanger and dozens of red-and-white peppermint candies.

the mistletoe ball
he made as a child
. . . then the way
he always resisted
his mother's kisses

Later, they took to telling us exactly what to give them. More than once from me: a dollar-size bottle of green Williams Lectric Shave for my father and, for my mother, Jergens "extra dry skin formula" lotion. Secretly, I longed for the day of impracticality, of fancy gifts, things fragile and unneeded.

Eventually, that wondrous day arrived. On an early-December expedition to a popular shopping center, our parents dropped us off at a department store where they allowed us, for a short time, to roam around on our own.

Suddenly, there it was—angel bells ringing—prominently displayed on a table. Made of glass, the sort of present I had hoped to find. And miraculously, according to a sign, the price was just five dollars. My brother, a nonshopper to this day, immediately went along with my idea. Heaven knows how he was able to carry such a hefty box all the way to the car and how we managed to disguise it as well as find a sheet of wrapping paper at home that was large enough to fit around it. But in any case, when our mother and father opened the package that Christmas day, to my barely 10-year-old eyes they looked surprised.

their punchbowl set
neatly stowed away
in a closet . . .
those festive parties
we hoped they would have

---

Author's Note: That punchbowl set is now packed away in my own house.

—Haibun Today, Vol. 11, No. 4, December 2017

M E R R Y  C H R I S T M A S ,  H A P P Y  H O L I D A Y S !

Tanka Prose

Clouds

I would build a cloudy House

For my thoughts to live in,

When for earth too fancy-loose,

And too low for Heaven. [1]

—Elizabeth Barrett Browning

If I didn't know better, Elizabeth, I'd say you were haunting me. It all may have started just down the street from a school I attended—at the St. Marylebone Parish Church, where you and your dear Robert secretly married (though I was ignorant of that fact until only recently). I passed by a few hundred times as a youth, never stepping foot inside. Then five years later, and more than an ocean away, I came to live in a college dormitory building that to this day faces a world-renowned library dedicated to you and Robert. So close to you again, yet I continued to be deaf to your presence.

How the decades have turned to vapor. Now, I find myself back in London, roaming the streets as if lured from place to place by your hand, soft and warm. Yesterday, to the National Portrait Gallery and its famous likenesses of the two of you. And this afternoon to this church at Marylebone Road. As soon as I slip in, I notice the plain, dark door labeled "The Browning Room." Ah! It's locked, but I hope you'll give me credit for vigorously rattling the knob. At least I manage to snap a photograph of the heart of the church—from pews to pulpit and grand ceiling—generating stares from a handful of workers before I dash back out.

some have said

cameras steal souls . . .

with this one shot

all I wish to capture

is the splendor within

In search of another wispy trace of you, I next make my way down a section of the High Street and onto quiet blocks known for their opulent, historical residences and medical establishments. My silent gasp as I eventually come upon that famous address where you spent the last eight years of your life before you eloped. Etched quite simply, near ground level, into the building's stone facade: "Elizabeth Barrett Browning . . . Lived in a house on this site." I imagine you, fragile in constitution but your pen bold and strong, crafting your words in a way thought somewhat uncharacteristic for a woman of your time.

a sign 

at 50 Wimpole Street,

once the home 

of a beloved poet: 

The Heart Hospital

Finally, I wind my way through an overly crowded commercial district to Trafalgar Square and then to Westminster Abbey with its numerous pointed arches and sky-piercing Gothic spires. Here, your husband lies buried in the company of other notables, though far away from your own resting place at The English Cemetery in Florence, Italy. I bid adieu to you and yours, Elizabeth . . . but surely only for now.

evensong—

a hush of humanity 

as the sun 

slowly lowers itself

to a choral introit

_______________

Author's Notes:

[1] From "The House of Clouds," lines 1–4, by Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1841). The first-published version (in Athenaeum) is used here; in subsequently published versions, the punctuation is different.

The wording soft and warm is from "Sonnets from the Portuguese 24," line 3 ("In this close hand of Love, now soft and warm"), by Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1850).

The St. Marylebone Parish Church, which has been associated with a great deal of history, was established "sometime after 1086" (per the church's website). The basic structure of the present-day parish church was completed in 1817. Various well-known individuals have attended the church, including Charles Dickens and his son. The Brownings were married there in 1846.

A round commemorative plaque (first installed in 1899), too small and located too high for the narrator to read in person, is affixed to the building at 50 Wimpole Street. Its interesting wording: "Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Poetess, Afterwards Wife of Robert Browning, Lived Here, 1838–1846."

The poet's Georgian Wimpole Street house, which she shared with Barrett family members, was likely torn down in 1935 (sources vary on the date). Curiously, the current structure at that location is associated with a major heart center.

Elizabeth was a semi-invalid for much of her life, apparently suffering from a collection of maladies (the exact set of illnesses is open to debate). Also, it is said she was prescribed opiates, to which she became addicted.

Coincidentally (unknown to the author until she had completed this story), a legend exists that the ghost of Elizabeth haunts the Armstrong Browning Library in Waco, Texas. Also refer to the tanka prose piece "All Things Browning," Haibun Today, 11:1.

_______________

Haibun Today, Vol. 11, No. 2, June 2017

Update: As if I didn't already have enough unexpected Browning and Barrett  "connections" (that I never before paid attention to) . . . A few weeks ago, I was cleaning out old purses and in one of them found a small flyer about a cruise line's shore excursion we went on roughly 20 years ago. It was for Greenwood Great House, a Barrett family residence in Jamaica. 

Tanka Prose

All Things Browning

God's in His heaven—All's right with the world! [1] 

—Robert Browning

"Would you also like to see the balcony on the third floor?" a library attendant asks me. "We keep the door locked, but I can open it for you. The view is lovely."

For two years as a college student, I lived across the street from this lavish Italian Renaissance-style building. Yet until now, decades later, I'd never actually explored inside these walls, nor outside them either. I'd only attended a ceremony or two—in then out, no time for more. Today, Pippa, the bronze statue surrounded by greenery at the front of the long, manicured lawn, comes to life for me . . . drawing me in.

As I step gently through a network of grand rooms in the Armstrong Browning Library (which is both research center and museum), I have trouble deciding where to fix my gaze. Greeting me first: rich-wood paneling, towering marble columns, ornate ceilings, a polished tile floor with a brass-inlaid border. The tranquil countenance of a young man seated at the front desk. Then book after antique book lining shelf after shelf. A multitude of stained-glass windows, sunlit and vivid, almost all of them illustrating poems by Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Browning. Personal furniture. Busts and other sculptures, miscellaneous works of era-appropriate art. And several Browning portraits, with faces that seem to stare pensively at me.

can an artist

capture on canvas

the essence

of a master of words?

this son they called Pen

Many delicate pieces of memorabilia gracefully rest in glass cases. (Not to mention that the library also maintains a vast-and-growing collection of letters and manuscripts.) I realize I could study every trinket and silver spoon, every brooch and snippet of lace, for more time than I have—as well as lose myself in the notes that accompany them. A small traveling tea set, with basket, particularly captures my attention. The story goes that the set belonged to a Mrs. Jean Sherwood, an American art critic, who used it to share tea with a stranger one day while on a train journey in Italy. During their conversation, Mrs. Sherwood remarked that in America Elizabeth Barrett Browning was considered to be the greatest woman poet. The stranger responded, "She was my wife."

this wisp of hair

held tight in the embrace

of a locket . . .

how certain small things

don't harden with age

her inkstand

made of fine porcelain . . .

a chorus

of syllables

spilling onto paper

even leaves

from the laurel wreath

on his casket

saved, arranged in a frame . . .

still a cascade of life

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways [. . .]

I shall but love thee better after death. [2]          

—Elizabeth Barrett Browning 

_______________________

Author's Notes:

[1] From "Pippa's Song," lines 7-8, in Pippa Passes, a dramatic poem/play by Robert Browning (1841).

[2] From "Sonnets from the Portuguese 43," first and last lines, by Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1850).

Inspiration and information for "All Things Browning" came primarily from an in-person visit to The Armstrong Browning Library at Baylor University, Waco, Texas; the library's website and the librarian/curator of books and printed materials also served as resources. The facility, which opened in 1951, "houses the world's largest collection of Browning material and other fine collections of rare 19th-century books, manuscripts, and works of art" (as stated on the website).

The life-size statue of Pippa, presented to the library in 1957, was sculpted by Waldine Tauch.

Sculptor/painter Robert Wiedeman Barrett Browning, or "Pen," was the Browning poets' only child. Several portraits he painted of his parents are displayed at the library.

Elizabeth (1806-1861) is buried at the English Cemetery, Florence, Italy, while Robert (1812-1889) is buried in Poets' Corner in London's Westminster Abbey.

On a personal note, the author was surprised to discover, not long ago, an additional Browning "connection." Not only did she live as a student across the street from the Armstrong Browning Library, but she also attended a middle school barely more than steps from London's St. Marylebone Parish Church, where the Brownings married in 1846.

_______________________

—Haibun Today, Vol. 11, No. 1, March 2017

Announcement: Haibun Today, Dec. 2017, Now Online

The December issue of Haibun Today has been released. I hope you enjoy the collection of voices in the tanka prose section, where poets write about distant Morocco, East Prussia, an old house on Chediston Street, "a turn never before taken," an unforgettable hike, wild ancestral tribes, speeding words, "things fragile and unneeded," a cherished carrot cake recipe, paintings by Renoir and Whistler coming to life, remembering a sister, "visions of Mother," and more.

http://www.haibuntoday.com

Tanka Prose

No room at the inn

We're among the first to arrive this afternoon at the local drug store, our haven from this storm of storms. Bedecked in our "emergency" ponchos (mine with Mickey Mouse on the back), we tromp in, rain beads sliding off onto the floor. A short while later, a lady bursts in by herself, animated, rattled. She briefly describes, to anyone and everyone, her harrowing experience on a nearby flooded road: "I asked myself, did I want to be one of those people they show on TV who has to be rescued?" She immediately answers her own question, "No!"     

Others trickle in little by little. A soft-spoken woman relays to us how her grown son, who tried to drive into town to pick her up, did have to be saved from the waters, his car lost to them. And a thin man who must be nearly seven feet tall commands attention. "This is the fifth time in the past year, the fifth time, I've been flooded out of my place." I begin to feel as if I'm part of a classic Christie whodunit—disparate guests gathered here, unable to leave, all roads out, both big and small, impassable. 

It's amazing how we manage to whittle away the hours, alternately cruising the aisles, curling up in cold faux-leather chairs in the pharmacy waiting area, and stepping outside to check out the scene: the lights, the clouds, the rescue boats carried on trailers. From time to time, one of the store workers shows us updated radar maps on his smart phone. (We have no smart phone ourselves, and our shared old-style phone has run out of juice.) My husband keeps talking about finding a clean room for the night. That is, until someone new bolts in and announces there are no more rooms to be had in this town—even if we could get to one.

a see-through case

with travel toothbrush

and tube of paste—

life's essentials

for a dollar or two 

While it makes no sense to us, the store shuts down at its usual time, 10 p.m, forcing all of us to move to our vehicles in the near-packed parking lot. Just before then, a line forms in front of the women's restroom. I feel possibly more concerned about having to suddenly relieve myself at 2 or 3 in the morning than I do about threats of tornadoes not so very far away. Even the employees station themselves outside, one of them leaning against the building, guzzling wine from a bottle half concealed in a brown paper bag.

Sometime after midnight, through the window of her large black Cadillac SUV parked next to us, a woman we'd chatted with bids us kind farewell as though we are longtime friends. She has decided to try her luck at leaving, hoping a road or two have reopened since the earlier police warning—but she does live a little closer than we do. Over the course of the night, three more rounds of rain, even a little hail, beat down on us, the last starting at approximately 3:45 a.m. My husband manages to snooze through the heaviest of it; not so me, however.

Come 5:30 or so, the lot is only a third full. (Did others know something we didn't?) I'm oddly glad to still see the white pickup truck two spaces over. A flicker of brightness, I assume from a cigarette lighter, lets me know there's life inside. A short while later, the occupant hops out and disappears round to the back of the building. I believe I know what he's about to do there.

the shelter

of our Kia Soul

this storm-drenched night

with other travelers

we share the restless sky

—Atlas Poetica, Summer 2017

__________________________________

For part one to this story, read "Deluge." 

Tanka Prose

Singing Pines

In the center of the quiet road, a small tangle of thin cable, barely visible against the tarry surface. I determine that it's a pair of earbuds, one badly cracked, partially flattened. Who would have worn these? Who would have needed them when the sounds of nature—these woods, this sky—are all around? I resume my brisk pace, dismissing my own questions.

Moments later, the world opens up, flings itself at me with whistles, warbles, caws, chatter. With flapping sounds, scampers, whish-whooshes, crackles, and thuds, from the forest floor to the tops of the tallest pines. Everything amplified. I find music even in the human-made: distant buzzes and hums of lawn equipment, the repetitive clanking of construction a mile or so away. From then on, each time I walk along that stretch of road, the same magic, the same amplification. Days pass, weeks pass; remarkably, the earbuds stray only a foot or two from their original location.

the rattle

of threadbare branches

evolves

into an aria

of unfurling leaves

as if someone

suddenly cranked up

the bass . . .

from a pond's reedy edge

the breeding calls of bullfrogs

My husband joins me on today's walk. This time, when I see the little puddle of cable, I make an impromptu decision—to gently kick it off to the edge of the asphalt, out of the way. I notice that the damaged bud is finally missing altogether. But as we pass by again, on our second lap, I recall that a crew will soon be out to mow down the tall, wild grasses. I kick the former listening device back, ever so slightly, into the road. My husband appears baffled by my behavior, why I would want to protect such a battered, useless thing. He doesn't seem to realize that, when it comes to certain matters of importance, I need reminders.

_______________

—Contemporary Haibun, July 2017, vol 13 no 2

Tanka Prose

Deluge

veins of lightning

flash their warning

to the earth …

the silent rivers  

that daily course through me

Despite the rain, we have all the hope of safely arriving home this spring afternoon. But then the heavens open wide. Sky soon blends into road, which blends into flash-floodwater. A massive wash of gray, a lengthy line of traffic.  

We make the decision to turn around in our tiny vehicle at the last-possible opportunity to do so—just before the tall pickup truck ahead of us goes barreling through, water up to its taillights. It appears that a second pickup, from the other direction, could be floating. (We later realize this is where the highway dips and that the stream has risen well above the small bridge.) But halfway into the turn, momentary panic engulfs me: could the way back now be as treacherous as the way we were headed?    

—FM 1774, Waller County, Texas, USA

—Atlas Poetica, Spring 2017

___________________________________

This event took place last May, about two weeks after my mother's passing and two weeks after the first set of spring rains, which caused much flooding in Houston and the surrounding areas. What a shocker: we heard that a foot of rain fell that afternoon in just one hour. This story is part one. The second part, "No room at the inn," will be posted in a few weeks, once it's been published.

Tanka Prose

Registration

Tap, tap, tap, tap, tap … Sturdy, manicured nails striking keys. So far, she's asked me three questions to do with my personal information—basically, if it's still correct. "Yes, Yes, Yes," I've responded. The tapping goes on interminably. Why, I have no idea. Elbow on desk, I rest my chin in my palm.

tick tick tick
who am I anyway?
the most I do
in this sterile space
is take a few more breaths

Then more questions—what's a good emergency contact number, if I have a living will, who my next of kin is—the same questions I've been asked a multitude of times before, followed by more tap-tapping on the keyboard. And eventually, she generates a thin plastic wristband to ID me during my brief stay, a stack of papers I must initial and sign (including one reminding me this is a smoke-free facility), and a stapled document I'm supposed to take home (a candidate for the shredder).

Twelve minutes of my life, gone. Not to mention the eighteen or nineteen minutes of wait time beforehand. To think I'm here only for a routine procedure.

fingernails
painted the color
of the sea ...
deeper, deeper my feet
in imaginary sand

________________

—Contemporary Haibun Online, January 2017, vol. 12, no. 4

Announcement: March issue of Haibun Today

The March 2017 issue of Haibun Today has been released—my first time as editor of the tanka prose section. Enjoy!

Tanka Prose

Welcome

We knew it could happen at any time…. But the manicured evergreens, that stately magnolia tree, no stray leaf or seedpod, said otherwise. As did the covered porch that sheltered us, its graceful rocking chairs always occupied on best-weather days. And the soft whoosh-click of the automatic glass doors. Then once inside, greetings and smiles, swirls of life in the aquarium down the hall, sunlight squeezing between the slats of venetian blinds.

We knew it could happen at any time…. But Christmas came as usual, though this was the year we thought it might not. And each day, comfort-food aromas arising from the kitchen, a subtle soap scent from the laundry. Cheerful floral carpeting that muffled the brisk steps of workers and visitors. The nameplate affixed on the wall by her door. 

We knew it could happen at any time....

without fanfare

residents disappear

from the home

when their time is up—

rooms tidied and swept clean

—Ribbons, Fall 2016

Tanka Prose

Artifacts 

This vintage box from London, dusty enough for me to draw on with a finger, holds more appeal for me than what's inside it. I wish the circumference of my sister's head were smaller so she'd claim the hat for herself, as she did in the case of our grandmother's mink stole, which I also didn't want. That would be the simplest thing, and I wouldn't have to hear the tone of disappointment in my father's voice when no one takes it.

fur,

glorious fur,

once 'the rage'—

my ever-so-quick touch

as if it might bite

I'm almost a stranger in the family house, which as it turns out is a cross between museum and antique store. I want little and need even less. Yet every now and then, while sorting through and emptying the house's contents, I feel my face positively gleam. As soon as my brother removes the decorative plates from the rack up high in the kitchen, I grab the blue-and-white one with the charming, homey winter scene, always a favorite. But my silent groan as I take a closer look: small figures on a mission to catch a turkey, kneeling in pure snow, yanking at tail feathers. (I remind myself that I have eaten not one bite of Thanksgiving turkey for twelve years.) And then, that elaborately etched serving piece: proper country gentlemen on their proper horses, accompanied by, yes, a pack of hounds. A fox chase. How did I, averse to all things gruesome, never before notice that?

I pause to consider how I came to be this way—this supposed bleeding heart, a label my brother boldly slapped on me when I was only a small child. (It would be years before I would understand the term, however.) After a few moments of hesitation, I decide to bring my bounty home, in the hope that at some point I will forget what I have seen.

her hostess tray

of hammered aluminum

always looked old . . .

now that it truly is,

I clean it to newness

—Haibun Today, Vol. 10, No. 4, December 2016