5 Tan-Renga Poems - Collaboration by Andrew Brindle & Christina Chin

 

5 Tan-Renga by Andrew Brindle & Christina Chin 

 

Andrew Brindle (plain text) 

Christina Chin (italic)

 

 

listening at dusk  

to a slow flowing river 

searching for the sea 

somewhere the tinkles 

a bell cricket 

 

 

from a window 

watching storm clouds build 

the latest worry 

neighbours have boarded up  

and left

 

 

at the close of day 

Venus and a waning moon 

serene solitude 

the silence  

deafening  

 

 

traveling further 

into the shrouded mountains 

meeting a storm 

scanning  

for shelter 

 

 

work meeting 

the aching slowness 

of the wall clock 

saved by the bell  

of the tea lady

 

 

Andrew Brindle is from the UK and has lived in Taiwan for more than 30 years. He has a Ph.D. in Linguistics focusing on discourse analysis and corpus linguistics. These days he finds himself on the northern coast of the island where he teaches, grows vegetables in the hills and writes haiku inspired by the ocean and mountains that surround him.

 

Christina Chin is a painter and haiku poet from Malaysia. She is a four-time recipient of top 100 in the mDAC Summit Contests, exhibited at the Palo Alto Art Center, California. 1st prize winner of the 34th Annual Cherry Blossom Sakura Festival 2020 Haiku Contest. 1st prize winner in the 8th Setouchi Matsuyama 2019 Photohaiku Contest. She has been published in numerous journals, multilingual journals, and anthologies, including Japan's prestigious monthly Haikukai Magazine.