Ten Tanka Poems by Adele Ogiér Jones

 

Art by Anni Zindel, 1983 - Water on cliffs

Ten tanka for time

i.

wind drumming wildly

announces spring’s arrival

on these early days

where soon sunshine and blossom

daub life’s canvas of time

 

ii.

rain painting streetscapes

ebony over grey sand

bouncing on iron rooves.

reminders of songs beyond

this passing moment of time

 

iii.

day’s cacophony

interrupted by crickets

greeting warm evenings

beyond strict sunset curfew

concerto, barely tempered

 

iv.

lone acacia stands

by twisting grey riverbed

where storytellers

gathered round evening campfires

sharing ancient memories

 

v.

hand-beaten wind chimes

reverberating with tunes

echoing lifetime’s

music and forgotten song,

laughter which built our loving

 

vi.

then new song morning

with a wattlebird beyond

roof lines where we sense

jubilation long after

deep midnight’s silent groundwork

 

vii.

singing early with

rain to remind us the drought

has broken, this time

too short to bring confidence

our earth’s climate is healing

 

viii.

rain’s melody hints

ancient harmony of spheres

sun, moon, and planets

as celestial ensemble

amending disharmony

 

xi.

time’s orchestra plays

its own tune, once discordant,

next in agreement

when instruments are tuned fine

to follow set music scores

 

x.

festivities shared

as we look moonward again

wondering once more

if others loved as we do

on planets outside our ken.

 

 

Adele Ogiér Jones is a member of The Poetry Society (UK). She is published in anthologies and online poetry journals, with a trilogy of 72 poems on art of Swiss artist Anni Zindel (Picaro Poets, 2021), and a new collection of poems on Irish rivers, Following Rivers in Trees (Ginninderra Press, 2022). Sixteen of her tanka-form poems appear in Poetry for the Planet (Litoria Press, Australia, 2021) as ‘Lost Love Song’ and ‘Tanka for the Planet’.