Colleen Chesebro has created a new #TankaTuesday challenge based on the 24 Japanese seasons. The season right now is The Autumn Equinox (September 22 – October 7) Shubun 秋分.
My kigo (season) word is date because dates are harvested in Arizona only in the months of September and October. Here is my reverse etheree:
DATE HARVESTING
Under the leafy fronds of the date palms
the molasses-rich, honey-sweet fruit
hangs in heavy grape-like bunches.
Pickers with nets try to skim
whole bunches off the tree
without getting spiked
by fierce needles.
These sweet dates
are worth
risk.
###
Switching now from autumn to spring, I have an ekphrastic poem up at Visual Verse here: https://visualverse.org/submissions/paschal-moon-at-midlife/. You can see the artwork that inspired it also. Or you can read the poem here (and the link at my name goes to all the poems and stories I’ve had published at this site):
PASCHAL MOON AT MIDLIFE
Release yourself from heavy
coats and boots of winter,
wiggle the toes and sense the air
scouting your arms and calves.
Consider the mud puddle, slide
the long grass along your tongue.
Sing in response to the sweet-
sweet-sweet of the cardinal.
In darkness imagine your guide,
the moon a bountiful platter
mirroring pink phlox-covered hills
of your imagination. Relieve
your mind of artificial restraints.
Let it loose into the unknown.
