Roadside ditches

roadside ditches

brimming with dark water

after the rains 

even they can shimmer

with the right touch of sun

—The Right Touch of Sun, 2017 TSA Members' Anthology

Pleased that the editors of the 2017 Tanka Society of America members' anthology, David Terelinck and Margaret Dornaus, were able to use wording from my tanka for the anthology title. I wrote "roadside ditches" during the wild rainy season of Spring 2016; my mother passed away at night as our region, in southeast Texas, experienced the first bout of torrential rain. Ironically, I submitted "roadside ditches" to the anthology editors 2–3 weeks before Hurricane Harvey struck in late August 2017. I'm a native Texan and have lived for the bulk of my life in Houston (or not too far away from Houston). I'm used to rain—and, conversely, also to drought—though not to such extreme amounts of it. 

Near the dunes

near the dunes 
search-and-rescue shifts 
to 'recovery' . . . 
how can a life 
vanish so completely?

—GUSTS 25, Spring 2017

While my niece was staying here with her family in August 2015, she learned of a good friend's swimming accident. The other two in the group survived. 

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

Fishing for words

Found after decades! Packed away with other favorites of mine, their spines barely affixed, A Child's Garden of Verses (a condensed pop-up edition) and The Golden Book of Poetry … coming back to life. 

I don't know exactly when, or why, my writerly muse first emerged—or where it came from. (But perhaps it was fed by the lines within these very books?) Nor can I explain my inability to hold onto my muse for very long at any given time. Yet even after I've convinced myself it's sailed off for good, I will probably half expect to find it again, waiting for me in some invisible box or misty sea.

Wynken, 

Blynken, and Nod, 

poets three 

in the same wooden shoe 

without their nets of gold

______________

Author's Notes:

— The above tanka is a reference to "Wynken, Blynken, and Nod," Eugene Field, 1889; "misty sea" is from the same poem.        

— The Golden Book of Poetry, various poets (including Field), 1947.

— A Child's Garden of Verses, Robert Louis Stevenson, 1885.

—Haibun Today, vol. 10, no. 2, June 2016 

I wrote the above tanka, a take on the familiar children's poem, in response to three of us lamenting the then-current loss of our muses. They must have sailed away, on vacation together. Not long before that, I came across the above-mentioned books, so voila, a tanka+prose piece!

Scarred with rust

scarred with rust

this metal dustpan

after two floods—  

the things I replace

the things I don't

—Frameless Sky, issue 3, fall 2015

Waters may warm

waters may warm,

storms intensify,

sea levels rise 

…..yet still the voices

…..of children at play

—A Hundred Gourds, 5:1, December 2015

Golden-winged; setting up

golden-winged

a small bird skims

the ocean,

dipping into the blue

for bits of sustenance

~ Southern Caribbean Sea

setting up

for a Sunday jazz brunch

in the park—

overhead, the notes

of wild parakeets

~ Ft Lauderdale, Florida

—both in Atlas Poetica, #22, Summer 2015

More timid

more timid

about the cold water

in this lagoon

than mingling with stingrays,

velvet against my skin

—Atlas Poetica, #22, Summer 2015

What's ours; a new rock

what's ours

isn't really ours …

we stare at plans

for a bullet train

through the neighborhood

a new rock, 

plastiglomerate *

litters the shore—

will the words I leave behind

also survive the seas?

* melted plastic trash mixed with beach sediment and debris

—both of these—red lights, June 2015

Gabcikovo lock

Gabcikovo lock
filling and emptying—
how many 
more feet must we fall
before the doors open?

—Atlas Poetica, 20, January 2015

Nov. 2013, on Danube Canal
between Slovakia and Hungary

Sea legs

sea legs

on a land body—

the waves

rock-rocking me to sleep

in this vessel's womb

—Eucalypt, 18, summer 2015

Leaving Boston, May 2014

Tanka sequence

165 feet down 

drilling down 
to the other side 
of the world 
or to an aquifer, 
whichever comes first 

images 
of groundwater teeming
below our feet— 
the drought years we've had 
living on the surface 

well water 
speaks its own language 
as it streams 
into this bucket
… the rush of first words 

—red lights, January 2015

With this, I think I may take a break for a few weeks—many things I should do, and I also think I need to rest my eyes—though I may still post an announcement or two. I'm not sure who all my readers are, but thank you and please don't wander off too far. To the other side of the world and back, though, is okay.

The Three Graces; reflections

The Three Graces

Beauty, Joy, and Charm

linked in dance ...

if I were the fourth

what would be said of me?

—Skylark, 2:1, Summer 2014
The Three Graces: click link for photo/info

reflections

leap off the water ...

a statue

beside the Roman Pool

of Diana and the Stag

—Atlas Poetica, #18, Summer 2014

both tanka: Hearst Castle, San Simeon, CA

My next home and other house tanka

Below, several poems from the first half of my tanka career, most of them written and published at different times. Grouped together, I believe they almost form a sequence. Of course, in a deliberately written sequence, I hope I wouldn't have two brand-news and five houses or homes. ;) (And of course, years after the fact, I see an edit or two I perhaps should have made.)

my next home,

built among lean pines ...
thinner
and thinner the desire
to make a name for myself

squinting,
I imagine it ...
our rustic home
sprouting up

through winter ryegrass

our brand-new
home site and, already,
some visitors ...
in the sandy loam
fresh tracks of deer

half the rooms

accidentally
painted yellow—

a sin that I can't take

this much cheerfulness?

the time we spend

choosing our new front door
as if nothing else
much matters
but entrances and exits

up high
inside the porches
of our new home
wasps and daddy longlegs
all settled in before us

brand-new house
and yet another leak—
the puddles
I've been sloshing through
on my way to contentment

—"my next home," Tanka Splendor Awards 2007; "squinting," Landfall: Poetry of Place in Modern English Tanka (anthology), 2007; "our brand-new," Nisqually Delta Review, Winter/Spring 2007; "half the rooms," Simply Haiku, Winter 2009; "the time we spend," Ribbons, Fall 2008, and Take Five (anthology), Vol. 1, 2009; A Pebbled Shore (TSA 2009 members' anthology); "brand-new house," Simply Haiku, Winter 2009.

Wouldn't you know it, but after all that effort in choosing a door (long story), the builder gave us the wrong size door, with no apologies.

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.  

I don't fret; water flows

I don't fret
about privacy,
these blinds open
to the midday sun
and the crow-black night

water flows 
down our seasonal creek
as before
we learn how to let
the ripples just be

—both: Atlas Poetica, No. 14, Spring 2013

Today I walked out back to the wet-weather creek. It's been empty again for quite a while, due to our "extreme drought" conditions. Despite the recent rains, including heavy downpours this weekend, there is no water "flowing" down it now. But we do have mud—a good sign, I think, ha.

Ekphrastic tanka: break, break, break

The subject of my tanka here is a Monet painting (see link to painting underneath poem).

break, break, break,

a cold sea’s crashing waves . . .

the grief

painted into

these rocks at Belle Île

Allusion to Alfred Lord Tennyson’s poem “Break, Break, Break”
Claude Monet, “Rocks at Belle Île (The Pyramids of Port Coton),” 1886

—Atlas Poetica ("Ekphrastic Tanka" special feature), Nov. 24, 2012

Read about ekphrastic poetry at Atlas Poetica and The Music In It: Adele Kenny's Poetry Blog (which focuses on the craft and enjoyment of writing poetry).

The oldest oak

the oldest oak
by our wet-weather creek
succumbs to drought—
with this spray from the hose
a rainbow still forms

—Atlas Poetica, No. 12, Summer 2012

Sadly, that huge tree had to be removed.