For Colleen’s weekly Tanka Tuesday, a shadorma.
Pick a ripe
plum, bishop-violet
and roundly
rubicund,
sinfully sweet-scented and
luscious as Lilith.
Tag: shadorma
Clarity
A shadorma for Colleen’s weekly challenge.
Limpid pools
still beneath the trees
where the stream
bends and bows.
Here the essence of life breathes
soft as duck feathers.
Putting down roots.
A shadorma for Colleen Chesebro’s Tanka Tuesday. This week a photo prompt.
Putting down
roots, clothing bare dreams
with ivy,
is painting
futures with the golden hues
of shared warmth.
Summer morning
Bright morning,
gold-washed, singing
with fluted
orioles,
life pulse, the silent wingbeats
of a grey heron.
Sun and storm
A shadorma trio for Colleen’s weekly challenge.
When sun sears,
and each step drags through
molten bronze,
my ears pulse
with cicada-throb—phantom
hiss of cool fountains.
Peeling back
the light from shadows,
the heat from
cool tree shade,
the weight of summer becomes
a golden caress,
until the storm
unleashes torrents
from torn cloud,
water-burst
of electric-wired rain
to sooth the fever.
Thunderstorm
Storm breathes hot,
twists desert winds with
cloud-black hands,
bolts with light
the thunderheads, pealing—then
the clatter of rain,
pouring. Dark
seeps and soaks, crow-black,
ragged-winged.
No moonlight
passes through these wild pinions,
the cold sky’s heartbeat.
Stream
For Colleen’s Tanka Tuesday, a shadorma.
From its source
stream leaps for the light,
earth-channelled,
sun-yearning.
I taste darkness in its bones,
stars in its glitter.
Rushing wild,
tumbling with a child’s
eagerness
no notion
of when, why or tomorrow,
pool-plashed, sun-dappled.
Owl shadorma
Where were you
when the owl cried as
darkness fell?
The still stars
were so close I plucked a bunch
for you—but you’d gone.
Windy trees
A couple of shadormas. The wind has been blowing for three days now from the south. Not a gale, but persistent and warm.
In the dark
the wind is king that
bends the boughs
shakes the leaves
its wordless voice louder than
fox’s stealthy tread.
Windy sky
sickle moon hangs low
where owls drift
and we walk
our ears full of leaf-rustle
and the wind’s dark song.
Spring trio
The dverse prompt is the shadorma. It’s good to revisit this form.
Fandango
of dry leaves flying,
this spring wind
washes clean
the cold winter trash—blue sky
vibrates with birdsong.
Nights of moon
or clouded, no stars,
puckered with
owl voices
draw me out to stand beneath
the great emptiness.
Water runs
always this season,
chirruping,
light-splashed.
Moon, stars, spring wind blowing, dance
sap-green flamencos.
Jane Dougherty Writes 