Marsh Geese, watercolor, Jane Kohut-Bartels, 2007
Autumn wind startles–
Lowered to an ominous
Key—Ah! Mournful sounds!
The fat mountain deer listen-
Add their bellowing sorrow.
“North Carolina Stream”, watercolor, janekohut-bartels, 2008
It is just the beginning of the Autumn season here in the South. Only the temps would tell of this seasonal change, but there is something definitely different. Just a few short weeks ago, we had full-on summer, but now?
The smell of wood smoke, the crackle of fallen leaves, but still little color in Atlanta. The dogwoods are a blaze and some other trees, like sumac, but these huge oaks and pecans that surround our house and street are hanging on for dear life. Our red maple is still green with only a few outside branches in red and rust display.
Tanka is my favorite poetry form of all. It’s something I fell into about 8 years ago, and wrote a lot of it before I actually began a study of the inner guts of this ancient form. There are definite classical rules that one should learn before one dismisses these things. I need to go back to this study because I’ve forgotten a lot. It is unfortunate that many poets think they are writing tanka but they are just writing freeverse and dare to call it tanka. I did this, too, but am trying not to do this now. I find tanka the best medium for observation, expression and sentiment. Being allowed only 31 syllables culls a lot of verbosity and that can be only to the good for poetry.
And…..tanka takes your mind to a very different level. It’s not just a simplification, a clarification in the verse but something that instills a sense of peace and satisfaction. Worth plumbing the depths of this ancient form.
Lady Nyo
–
Autumn Tanka
–
I look up at blue
Sky this morning, watch leaves fall-
Whirling, colored tears.
Clip my face like dull razors,
The stroking of memory.
–
Is the whistling
Of the wind- a train, a plane?
Nature plays fiddle
And our senses are confused.
We dwell in chicanery!
–
Shooting star crosses
Upended bowl of blue night
Imagination-
Fires up with excited gaze!
A moment– and all is gone.
–
This grim November,
The month of my father’s death
Always bittersweet.
My memories float, weak ghosts-
Haunting in the fog of life.
–
So lonely am I
My soul like a floating weed
Severed at the roots
Drifting upon cold waters
No pillow for further dreams.
–
A late Summer moon
Floats above the conifers.
Autumn is coming.
Do pines know the season turns?
Their leaves don’t fall; do they care?
–
Come into my arms.
Bury under the warm quilt.
Your scent makes me drunk
Like the wine we gulped last night.
Too much lust and drink to think.
–
When Autumn enters
Inexplicable sadness.
Season fades to death.
Hunter’s moon sits in Heaven–
Garden spiders finish, die.
–
Out with the gold fish,
The bullfrogs croak their sorrow.
Summer is passing
Autumn brings sharp, brittle winds
But Winter is the cruelest.
–
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.
–
Overhead, the cranes,
Sandhills, swirl in board circles.
Broken GPS?
No matter, their cries fall down
Celestial chiding rain.
–
To end this with a simple poem, not a tanka.
Autumn night winds
Hiss over the land
Round corners
And pulse under eaves.
Clashing wind chimes add sharp discord
As bare branches answer with a grating groan.
Above all,
The moon casts a feeble light
Too thin to fatten the road.
–
(this poem from “White Cranes of Heaven”, published by Lulu.com, 2011)
–
Jane Kohut-Bartels
Copyrighted, 2011-2014
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