Tanka Prose

Preservation

I must have learned to stand up for myself at an early age. As if it happened just yesterday, I see my mother marching back to the market to wave her purchase in front of the manager.

how things gel

into long-term memory—

the leggy insect

suspended inside

a jar of marmalade

—Haibun Today, June 2014

Refusing

refusing
to use a walker
or cane
she leans on me
for the first time in her life

Happy to win second place for English-language tanka in the 2014 San Francisco International Competition, conducted by the Haiku Poets of Northern California (HPNC). Poet/editor Michael McClintock was the tanka judge this time.

A charm

a charm
of the planet earth
…...dangling there
on my new bracelet
without a sun or moon

—GUSTS, #20, Fall/Winter 2014

It wasn't too very long before I went back to the store and added a sun, a moon, and two small stars. Ah, to feel complete….

More bad news

more bad news
forces its way inside
our home ...
a thin rim of snow
around the welcome mat

–tinywords, November 2014

"Bad news" of some sort is rarely very far from us. May we find our own peace and joy where we can along the way.

A widow; a small moth

a widow
traveling alone
her stories
intricate as the design
on her needlepoint purse

—Moonbathing, Nov. 2014

a small moth

           hovering 

above our dashboard—

three of us together

miles away from home

—Presence, #49, Feb. 2014

May your travels through 2015 be bright and fulfilling!

P.S. A friend and I were privileged to meet the "widow" at afternoon tea while on a cruise ship voyage.

December sky

December sky

sifts through the charred forest—

over the phone

my brother and I

resurrect our ghosts 

—The Bamboo Hut, vol 1, no. 2

This one was written in December 2011, three months after the second, and most destructive, set of wildfires of the year swept through our region. Flames were practically at our "back door," and we had to evacuate (right after we'd relocated there) for eight days. In this same time frame, one or two additional fires apparently were deliberately set at the front of our little community.

On a very different note:

H A P P Y  N E W  Y E A R !

Off the freeway; my father

off the freeway
in an open field
a vast church
its cross shaped in a curve
as if to hold the world

—kernels, 2013

my father

who rarely ever hugs

halfway does ...

bells begin to ring

this Christmas season

—Frameless Sky, December 2014

Frameless Sky is a new, innovative DVD journal from the creative Christine L. Villa.

M E R R Y  C H R I S T M A S 

Wishing you peace and joy.