1
imagine
growing roots into
fertile ground

fertile ground
the protective cloak
of the earth

of the earth
talking to the moon
with stillness

with stillness
welcome the new year
imagine

2
always, earth
transitioning—life
rearranged
into new
patterns—open your arms wide–
inhale, welcoming

For Frank Tassone’s #haikai challenge for the New Year, and Colleen’s #tanka Tuesday challenge to write a poem of hope, I’ve written two variations of the same idea, and reprised a collage I did for an earlier #tanka Tuesday in 2019.

Colleen asked us to use our favorite form of poetry and to tell why we like it. Of course I love pantoums and all repetitive poetry, and I often write using Japanese poetic forms, but I most often write in shadorma. Somehow its rhythm and length work well with the way I express my thoughts, and when I’m stuck, it works to focus me, making…

• 

My friend Kerfe has kept me inspired this crazy year with these postcards. Today I decided to share them.

Thank you, Kerfe, for your years of friendship and encouragement. And to all our WordPress friends, happy 2021!

My art is featured in the Winter 2021 showcase of The Zen Space (available online here) and the Summer 2020 Raw Art Review (available for download here). My thanks to editors Marie Marshall and Henry Stanton for selecting my work.

Inky black, her nightly travel track
Hopelessness all luminescence lack
Ancient lore, by all who has gone before
Depression’s demons lonely souls adore
Cold sorrow, haunting dreams of tomorrow
Unloved child, cutting pain in bone and marrow

Fiery passion, smothered without compassion
No freedom to create in whatever fashion
Bright love, fading to embers without the care it behooves
Lost without the moon’s brightness above
Hope dart, as sudden kindness heal a hurt heart
Stars glimmer as dark clouds depart

Warm trust, swells in the arms of lust
Surrender to soul guidance we must
Sunrise’s clarion call, there’s hope for us all
Chance to rise again after a fall
Fear ended, trauma shattered mind mended
Rise like a true abuse ascender

©RedCat

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Paul Brookes of the Wombwell Rainbow is hosting a special January ekphrastic challenge.
Today is Day 1.

Thank you, Paul.

My…

Paul Brookes of the Wombwell Rainbow is hosting a special January ekphrastic challenge. Today is Day 1. Thank you, Paul.

My poem today responds to Kerfe Roig’s image, “Acquainted with the night close.” I realize it’s probably not a crow in the painting.

Night Seer

Crow soars through the brume, the leaden sky
awash with whirling dreams, spindrift from the sea of night,
and shiny-bright, he gathers them.

No trickster, he, but seer
of what might be in time with chance, he caws
a warning, laughs in love—there’s so much to be done—

in the rustling of ancient winds, he breathes
a break in darkness, drops omens in oceans
and hopes on moonbeams,

watches the stars. His eyes reflect their gleam.