the choices we make distant thunder
Author: Jennifer Hambrick
A four-time Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net nominee, Jennifer Hambrick won the 2020 Sheila-Na-Gig Pres Poetry Prize, won First Place in the 2018 Haiku Society of America's Haibun Award Competition, won First Place in the 2021 Martin Lucas Haiku Competition, and authored the collections In the High Weeds, winner of the Stevens Manuscript Award from the National Federation of State Poetry Societies; Joyride (Red Moon Press), winner of the Marianne Bluger Book Award from Haiku Canada; and Unscathed (NightBallet Press). She has won numerous other awards for her work, which has been published in The Columbia Review, The American Journal of Poetry, The Santa Clara Review, Maryland Literary Review, POEM, the Red Moon Press haiku and contemporary haibun anthologies, Modern Haiku Press’ Haiku 20xx anthologies of “Notable Ku,” Modern Haiku, The Heron’s Nest, Mayfly, Frogpond, Contemporary Haibun Online, and in dozens of other journals and invited anthologies worldwide. A classical musician and public radio broadcaster and multimedia producer, Jennifer Hambrick lives in Columbus.
spring burial
light around the edges
of the clouds
fall fair
the caramel apple angle
of the sun
gathering dusk
i leave the old toys
at the thrift shop
talk of rain
the first drop hits
my lower lip
the well too full
for empty words to echo
Note: This is a tan renga by Jennifer Hambrick and Brad Bennett.
Manhattan evening
three fingers
of sunset
beached seaweed
all the tangles
of this life
grackles
the teen boys
raid the fridge
spring thaw
seeping into the back yard
the sky
black friday
two crows tear
at a plastic bag
less water in the vase
than yesterday
nursing home
children’s voices –
the daisies in the vase
unwilt
birthday card—
onion skins
skitter away