fingerprints

the four arms 
of the Milky Way
spiraling around us
the four hands of Shiva
fingerprint the stars


~All the Shells: Tanka Society of America 
Members' Anthology 2014

I need a name
for the wainwright of stars
who unfurls 
each fiddlehead to fern . . .
worthless, this cloistered tongue

~cattails Jan. 2015

shapeshifting

the gray fox
slipping like mist
through a shimmer
of moonlight 
my shadow

~Bright Stars 6, Fall 2014

shapeshifting
through deep time. . .
inside the wing of a bat
the bones of my hand 
take flight

~Bright Stars 6, Fall 2014

A Wayfarer

leaves drift 
across my path 
this autumn 
I lose the end 
of Ariadne’s thread

naked
under my cloak of dreams
I journey
toward a glass mountain. . . 
a sparrow hops in the dust

listening
for the heartbeat
of mystery—
a dry leaf crinkles
in the hollow of my hand

a map 
etched in frost
on a sycamore leaf
at the toe of my boot
. . .  you are here

snowflakes
on the tip 
of my tongue
the myriad names 
of god



~Bright Stars 6: An Organic Tanka Anthology, Autumn 2014

fluff

my breath sets free 
a thousand downy cattail seeds—
all the fluff 
I need to shed
before the new year comes

~A Hundred Gourds 3:2, Dec. 2013

Sanctum

Janet Lynn Davis
Jenny Ward Angyal

ancient chapels 
carved into the rock face 
of Mönchsberg ... 
once the tourists are gone 
I crawl inside myself 
    ~JLD (Salzburg, Austria)

inscribed
on the torii gate 
spirit of light—
fountains flowing
in the falling snow
      ~JWA (New York City, USA)

~Skylark 2:1, summer 2014

Thanks to my friend & fellow tanka poet, Janet Lynn Davis, for her collaboration on this short sequence. You can find more of Janet's fine tanka on her blog, twigs&stones.

We wish everyone a very happy Winter Solstice (or Summer Solstice, for our friends in the southern hemisphere)!

in a lazy sky

vultures
tip-tilting in a lazy sky
I fling
into the meadow 
the carcass of ought


~Skylark 2:2, winter 2014

echoes

a ribbon of birds
across the winter sky
the echo 
of earthbound magic
in those hollow bones


~GUSTS 19: spring/summer 2014

slow down 
slow down the song 
of the wood thrush
until at last it echoes 
the music of humpbacked whales

~Atlas Poetica 18, July 2014