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Observe the darkness;
Yet the star and moon shed light;
Yet my head has no
Lit path in itself or a
Way to waltz throughout its night.
I’ve been trying to post, but this thing keeps crashing on me.
Mark Toney Oct 2019
Love's cornerstone set
Forty-five years together
Dear wife of my youth
Our sons, their wives, our lives full
May love's embrace continue...

          ~ to the moon and back ~
7/14/2018 - Poetry form: Tanka (plus a celestial reference) - Copyright © Mark Toney | Year Posted 2018
Hummingbird Oct 2019
Rising in the east
The tree-tops painted silver
Pale orb in the sky
But an accent of the sun
Mother to the stars above
Mark Toney Oct 2019
haiku loves nature
senryu human nature...
tanka expounds both
no matter how much I learn
I only know a whisper
6/17/2018 - Poetry form: Tanka - Copyright © Mark Toney | Year Posted 2018
Mark Toney Oct 2019
cool green leaves rustling
hot red tin roof expanding-
freedom of movement
stiff arthritic limbs longing
go - exercise caution - stop
8/14/2019 - Poetry form: Tanka - A Japanese poem of five lines, the first and third composed of five syllables and the others seven. In Japanese, tanka is often written in one straight line, but in English and other languages, we usually divide the lines into the five syllabic units: 5-7-5-7-7. Each tanka is divided into two segments. The first three lines are the upper phrase, and the last two lines are the lower phrase. The upper phrase typically contains an image, and the lower phrase exposes the poet's ideas about that image. - Copyright © Mark Toney | Year Posted 2019
Oscar Similan Oct 2019
the days have different names
but don't deserve them
each one falls again the same
my body knows what to do
so I let it ride mindless
Oscar Similan Oct 2019
all your plans are but a wish
worth making, no doubt
but hold on loosely
the wind may scatter your leaves
rain falls on a pleasant day
Colm Oct 2019
Steady shadows wince
At the sunrise smiling wide
Seeing it's lover
Saying casual goodbyes
To it's famed fling named goodnight
Sunrise Fling Tanka
Oscar Similan Sep 2019
the day ahead has been lived
once before and will again
the rhythm rolls so forth
I know the play well
nothing worth a memory
Colm Sep 2019
Radiant dawn born
Like the morning dew dripping
Off of the treetops
And the planted hopes within
That he won't be lonely when

Radiant dusk dies
Like the aged life left alive
After grass clippings
Fall outside the window still
For one final time, he cries
I had absolutely no clue how these would turn out, but I'm quite content with how they currently are. Having started with the rather bare idea that these two verses should be relational, but not necessarily growing.

His & Her Tankas is a pair of poems about an aging couple who are in the process of saying goodbye. Her, to the hope that she would have outlived him in order to minimize suffering. Him to his situation, inability to cut the grass as before, his dependency on those around him, and also to the loss of his wife.

RIP

I didn't intend for the metaphor of Dusk and Dawn to be represented by an aging His and Her. It just kind of happened like a free cup of coffee.

It appears.

Thus is the nature of creation.

Have a nice Wednesday and enjoy.
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