Category Archives: Tanka

July 25, 2017

Tea with Mom Haibun/Tanka

For Colleen Chesebro’s Tuesday Poetry Challenge, a Haibun/Tanka infused with the words Heat and Confuse (and iterations thereof).

Tea with Mom

She takes her tea at 3:15 pm each day, steeped in a hand-painted porcelain pot, with two cubes of sugar and a splash of cream in her favorite tea cup. Rosemarie always joins her. They sit side by side in chairs positioned just so, at the window facing the pond, and sip away the hour chatting about this and that. I watch them from across the room with a ready smile and a nod hoping for a glimmer of recognition when she turns her gaze toward me. Most days she glances my way, a bit befuddled, settling into a wary tip of her head as she redirects her attention to the tea in her cup and the ducks aflutter in the pond. Most days I am grateful to be in the presence of this woman who raised me from a babe even though she doesn’t remember. I have memories aplenty for us both and savor them as I watch her fade into the hazy streams of afternoon sunlight…mom and her new best friend, nurse Rosemarie.

if I could, I would
sit beside you in the dark
and hold your frail hand
basking in warm memories
of us, as fog settles ’round

~kat

12 Comments | tags: Alzheimer's, Challenge, confuse, Haibun, heat, Poetry, Tanka | posted in Challenges and Writing Prompts, Digital Art & Photos, Haibun, Poetry, Random Thoughts and Musings, Tanka

July 18, 2017

Her Eulogy

By Kat Myrman

lilyofdeath

She was the kind of girl who lit up a room. Not in a flashy over the top sort of way. She had a calming presence, but it was more than that. Grace perhaps? It was something special, hard to describe. I remember the first time I saw her sitting along the far edge of a room full of boisterous people, heavy into schmoozing. She was deep in conversation with our host’s Labrador Retriever. Otis was his name I think. And Otis, well, he hung on her every word, just as I drank in her every move, breathless.

I underestimated her that first meeting, you know. Of course I made it a point to get to know her better. Wouldn’t you? She opened herself to me like an ocean, given to tidal swells of emotion, teeming with life just under the surface, fierce yet healing. I hadn’t expected to find a wild spirit beneath her calm demeanor, but it endeared her to me even more. Over the years I learned about wild things. Only one so confident, comfortable in their own skin can exude such grace. Only one so free could dance through the layers of suffering and cross over into death…and in so doing, teach us all…teach me, what it is to live.

light fading, flicker
death swept you away too soon
how graceful you were
dancing with death, like lovers,
your final breath seizing mine

~kat
For Colleen Cheseboro’s Weekly Poetry Challenge inspired by the words: Calm and Wild. Today’s offering, a Haibun/Tanka. I have only recently discovered this form and I’m really enjoying idea of marrying poetry and prose. Peace and Grace Everyone! ❤

20 Comments | tags: Calm, death, digital art, grace, Haibun, Tanka, wild, word prompt | posted in Challenges and Writing Prompts, Digital Art & Photos, Flash Fiction, Haibun, Poetry, Random Thoughts and Musings, Spirituality, Tanka, Under 300 Words

July 12, 2017

Arting and Humming

By Kat Myrman

My twins, coloring. ~kat

Mostly, I remember the smells…of linseed oil and turpentine, earthen clay and play dough. I can lose myself inside the lid of a fresh box of crayons. If I close my eyes I can imagine the sensation of finger paint, creamy cool between my fingers, and the sublime feeling of peeling elmer’s glue “skin” embossed with lines and creases from the palms of my hands. My introduction to art was a sensual, tactile experience.

Nowadays, I hum when I make art. I’m not sure why. It is not usually a recognizable tune; more like a droning purr of random notes. I suspect it is my left brain overflowing; bits of my soul released to be splashed onto a canvas, sculpted in clay, or scribbled on a page. I’ve been accused of being a bit crazy because of the humming. Or maybe it just drives others crazy because they can’t hear the music. All I do know, or am, at the very least, most certain of, is that art and music make me happy and touches the core of my being in ways that I can’t describe. So I hum and I art.

art by numbers
left-brain daubs inside the lines
magnum opus dreams
right-brain wild synapses
purr in rhapsody, the muse

~kat

For Colleen’s Taibun/Tanka Tuesday, prompt words Art and Music (Rhapsody).

12 Comments | tags: Challenge, digital art, Haibun, Poetry, Tanka | posted in Challenges and Writing Prompts, Digital Art & Photos, Essays, Haibun, Poetry, Random Thoughts and Musings, Tanka