Some Seasonal Tanka

(Landscape, England, by the author below)

Autumn wind startles–

Lowered to an ominous

Key—Ah! Mournful sounds!

The fat mountain deer listen-

Add their bellowing sorrow.

 

 

Answering echo-

One heart calls to another

A plucked string vibrates

And the tanka poetry

Kisses the roof of heaven!

 

 

The human psyche

Waits like a garden spider

A delicate web

Weaving a catechism–

A mystical orb of life!

 

 

Thin, silken breezes

Float upon a green-fabric

Of spring—pale season.

Scent of lilies, myrtle, plum

Arouse bees from slumber

 

I wander the fields

Snow covers the barren soil

Sharp wind plays pan pipes

A murder of crows huddle

Black laughing fruit hang from limbs

 

Mist drifts in waves

Ribbon-ing maple branches

The rising of moon

Make Egrets shimmer silver-

Gauzy ghosts of nothingness.

 

Like the lithe bowing

Of a red maple sapling

My heart turns to you,

Yearns for those nights long ago

When pale skin challenged the moon.

 

The full moon above
Floats on blackened velvet seas,
Poet’s perfection!
But who does not yearn for a
Crescent in lavender sky?

 

Jane Kohut-Bartels

Copyrighted, 2019

 

 

 

–