gathering
dark-red roses
I trim the thorns
cutting off regrets
before a petal falls
Author: Jenny Ward Angyal
Jenny Ward Angyal lives on a small organic farm in Gibsonville, NC, USA, with her husband and one Abyssinian cat. Her tanka have appeared in various online and print journals and may also be found at www.grassminstrel.blogspot.com
a raven
tumbling
across the sky
my wild mind
in his beak
passing strangers
on a rain-drenched road
we turn back
to ask their stories
. . . finding only mist
news
of a distant suicide?
one leaf
spirals downward
toward glittering frost
discarding
thirty-year-old letters . . .
the fresh scent
of pine seedlings
springing up in the clear cut
daffodils
running wild
among the stones
of an old homestead
voices echo
filaments of snow
drifting sideways
on the wind--
old pines
shed their ghosts
birds drift
over the meadow
summer-deep
the distant pulse
of a tambourine