tanka

Haiku and Tanka

/ Beth Weaver-Kreider / Leave a comment

2013 October 044

I am snuggling a boy and a cat in my lap at the moment: benefits of a cool morning.   Makes typing a challenge, though.

Here are a couple poems that walked into my head yesterday.  The first is a tanka, inspired by my friend Mara.  I thought the second was going to be a tanka, too, but while I was waiting for the last two lines to emerge, I realized it was already a haiku.

 

TANKA
See there! In your palm
are the rivers of story,
of constellations,
dragonfly wings, the pathways
of the heart: love, grief, desire.

HAIKU
The now-naked arms
of the walnut tree cradle
the newly-born moon.

Gratitude List:
1.  Autumn birdsong in the hollow
2.  Listening
3.  Constructing my own life
4.  Breakfast
5.  Tiny Poems

May we walk in Beauty.

Gratitude in Tanka

/ Beth Weaver-Kreider / Leave a comment

2013 May 051

 

Gratitude List in Tanka Form:

1.  Misty day and the
2.  village raising my children
3.  and bird calls at dusk.
4.  The way you speak to my heart.
5.  Always anticipating.

May we walk in Beauty.

Tanka Play

/ Beth Weaver-Kreider / Leave a comment

For tonight, a little tanka, a syllable count poem of five lines (5/7/5/7/7). I am not sure exactly where this came from, but sometimes you just have to let a poem happen, as Winnie the Pooh says you should.

Well, They Do

The tree is behind
the big red barn is behind
the swing is behind
the sweat lodge frame is behind
the field where vultures lay eggs.

Here is a picture of an African Eagle Owl, not a vulture.  Just because.2013 May 032

Gratitude List:
1.  First Responders
2.  Red Poppy
3.  Second Chances
4.  Warm Hugs
5.  General Silliness

May we walk in Beauty.

Swallows Return

/ Beth Weaver-Kreider / Leave a comment

A Tanka

Heads bent to our work
Setting stakes, planting new seed
A sound above us
chittering, chirping like mice:
The tree swallows have returned!

 

Yes, that’s a chunk of chickweed on my head.2013 April 022

Gratitude List:
1.  The swallows are back!
2.  Blooming
3.  Talking Story
4.  Clear water with slices of lime
5.  Good, healthy sleep
Namaste

Jan. 4 Poem, Jan. 5 Prompt, Gratitude List

/ Beth Weaver-Kreider / 3 Comments

The Poem
Here is yesterday’s (Jan. 4) post. This is a pernicious flu. It hits you like a Mac truck, then watches in the rear-view mirror until you pick yourself up and start to dust off, then it guns into reverse and knocks you down again. I think I heard it laugh diabolically yesterday as it ran me down.

Here is yesterday’s found poem, a little slapdash. I took it from page 179 of Starhawk’s Truth or Dare. I really want to do more found poems, but they’ll have to be on healthier days for me! This one feels unsatisfactory, but it at least fulfills the exercise.

New Dimension
to be silenced is to be
i s o l a t e d

telling our stories
telling and hearing our stories

create intimacy
support

when we speak our experiences
we make contact

real selves:
seen, mirrored, affirmed
we can know we are valued

our lives take on a pattern
and new dimension of meaning.

Today’s Prompt
I need to rest today. Today’s poem will be a tanka, a syllable count poem. Five lines of 5/7/5/7/7 syllables. If I am inspired, I may write several. Please join me! Post here in the comments or on the FB thread.

Gratitude List
1. Looking in the window of the Bookbindery on the corner of Grant and Water and seeing a light shining on the hands of the bookbinder as he tenderly restored the cover of an old book.
2. Memories of Aunt Lizzie repairing books just as lovingly.
3. 12 hours of sleep–all four of us!
4. Elderberries
5. Memories of my father-in-law, Ellis Kreider, who died 4 years ago on Epiphany.
May we walk in beauty.

Extra Tanka

/ Beth Weaver-Kreider / 1 Comment

I’ll post the Poem-A Day poem later.  Meanwhile, here’s a tanka:

I would stay indoors
were it not for seven hens.
Instead, bundled up
I step out into the snow
among the dancing bluebirds.

Breathe

/ Beth Weaver-Kreider / 2 Comments

Poem-A-Day Prompt 20: Two-in-one.  Write a Gathering Poem.  Write a Letting Go Poem.  I’m going to do a tanka (5/7/5/7/7).

Gather the dawn and wind.
Breathe in sun and frost and song.
Hold for a moment.
Breathe out birds and words and joy.
Breathe out moss and stones and hope.