Four Tanka
Prose
1
How much weight
should you give to climate and weather when deciding where to
live? If it rains a lot where you are, is that better or worse
than snow and ice? Let’s suppose your choice is between
Connecticut and California, between four complete seasons (hot
and humid, autumn leaves, snow and ice, and cornus forida
inflorescence) and a single year-long stretch of variable
weather (supporting oranges, almonds, artichokes, and cherries)
with a concentration of rain in January and February.
looking away
distant view to the Bay
in the windows
light grained bamboo
reflected on the glass
2
With the snow two
feet deep outside, we decided not to leave the house at all
today. I ransacked the freezer for leftover breakfast sausage
and a little salad. There was a can of whole kernel corn in the
pantry, so we could have fritters; either with sausage and syrup
or salad—sweet, as the English say, or savory.
performing
improvised feats
the face of an actor
making up life
on the fly
3
My son’s girlfriend
is native to Los Angeles, but, linguistically, her family comes
from all over. Her mother is Belizean—English, Spanish,
Kriol—and her father’s from Cambodia—gives you Khmer, Cham, and
French.
at the florists
jumbled up, roses
and tulips
arrangements of lilies
and chrysanthemums
4
الثورة
The news is filled with images of outrage and discontent. Where
for so long there had been stability or even stagnation there
are now winds of change blowing old dust out. That is the
optimistic view, but we have seen similar things before and we
still don’t know what to think or what to do.
rain of pink
chiffon
cherry and plum petals
giving way
these tiny hard fruits
and red-green leaves
The world has for so
long reflected stark contrasts of wealth and poverty, sorrow and
joy, freedom and oppression, in some places, a dignity given
freely to human beings while, in other darker places, a
trampling of men and women in the mud and the blood.
Deflagration pressures build until the passion leaps into flame.
wondering what
proscribed music
surges
when the first camellia
opens and peeks out
Part of the world
stuck in the past, they say, but the past is always just an
invention of the present. What happened a thousand years ago,
what people felt and thought, is no longer directly knowable by
us in the here and now. Idealizing rigid order and strict
obedience in the name of tradition or some old or sacred way
amounts to a trick of sorts.
my yard now
a path in Hanegi Park
plum blossoms
vaulting
dream chitter of biwa
