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Posts Tagged ‘tanka sequence’

after the fight
the evening is simple—
the dishes being washed,
the unfolding of sheets,
the laying down

*

what is not said:
well, I guess we are not
exactly sure what
that would be now,
are we

*

on the shelves
stacks of bowls, plates,
the glasses in rows—
so normal they look,
it could be any night

*

I don’t know
I don’t know I don’t
know I
don’t know I don’t—
geese in the pond

*

what do the geese
have to do with anything?
if you have to ask,
you have perhaps not lately
watched the geese

*

all along the path
pussy willows, white and white
and oh! so soft
I forget everything
save willows, willows

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Open those eyes … the ones that were born in your own skull. —Hsu Yun

I sniffed the lily—
such perfume!—
too closely
and now I wear
its stain.

*

Jupiter and Venus
almost touch in the west—
O rising thrill
to see two objects so far
so near.

*

I took my heart
for a ski today—
one look
at that diamond field
and it let fall all its clothes.

*

It is no lovelier
the scent of the lily,
up close
or across
the room.

*

See these scars
on my heart, these new bruises,
it’s not that I have been
unlucky at love, it’s that
I love.

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on our fingers,
six layers of skin
because
our hands
are made to touch

*

my daughter
picks a small stone
from the parking lot
and puts it
in her mouth

*

how do we know
what is real?
the stone
in the mouth
smooth and gritty and cold

*

the days
are so short.
they turn
into years
that are so, so short

*

and have we touched
enough?
the fingers
still have much
skin left

*

I am being
eroded
but you can’t see …
it’s all inside
the canyons deepening

*

I used to rush
to fill in
emptiness—
small stones
sinking into a pond

*

already
I have said
too much.

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To me, every hour of the light and dark is a miracle.
—Walt Whitman

Balanced against morning frost
I do not see
the great blue heron
wading in the river
so I put it there

*

Meredith mentions
a student who insists
on painting
into the foreground
a rock

*

“All she needs is a darker color,”
Meredith says, “and a value
like a triangle
and the canvas
would be full of light”

*

You do not have
to be talented—even
my three year old girl
knows how to paint
something that makes her smile

*

It is not a painting,
this life, still
there was a heron here not
long ago, standing in frost
it was so beautiful

*

Here and not here,
light and dark,
so many years spent
debating the two—this morning
I see it, the river chimed in frost

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silence.
silence.
a howling hurt.
silence. silence.
silence.

*

outside, the crickets
continue to sing,
though they would
never think of it
as singing

*

and Rumi says
to me,
how could we
know what a
dark night is?

*

again I see
I do not know.
I don’t know,
and the moon
hides.

*

but darn it! I want to know
where we are going.
Rumi says,
you are torturing
your soul.

*

inside, still no moon.
but there is a broken
open place.
I am learning
to sing from there.

*With quotes in italics from “Moving Water” and “Not Here” translated by Coleman Barks

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Stigma

so ready
to receive
what arrives in the air
the lily pistil
weeps

*

I, too,
want to
be joined
by something
invisible

*

it hangs, one clear drop,
and it hangs
and it hangs
and it hangs
and I watch

*

while I try to explain
what it means,
spirituality,
behind your back
lily petals splay

*

O lily!
the whole
world
becomes
flower

*

standing beside
the lily
I have
no names
worth knowing

*

ardent and sweet—
there is
no corner
of the room
not wearing perfume

*

what blooms
today tomorrow
withers
I tell myself
it is the same

*

there is still
too much
of me here
o lily, o lily
o lily

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