Outside my window

outside my window
the bamboo grows high and green
reaching for the bits
of sun between our buildings
snatching just enough to thrive

Top 10 Tanka

Clear Direction made it to the Top 10 of Writer's Digests Poetic Form Challenge!

Thanks to Robert Lee Brewer for doing these. It's a great chance to try something new. This short form is one of my new favorites.

Sacred warriors

Inspired, perhaps, by Earth Day and watching "Howl" last night.


We left the compass
at home, forgotten in some
drawer full of coupons
and crumbs and fortune cookies.
We knew where we were going.

We felt our way through
the flat night, navigating
by murky moonlight
a spiderweb of street lights
that led to something beyond

city water pipes
and cookie cutter housing
divisions and fast
food drive-thrus. We followed the
elemental pull of some

primal lust buried
deep in our mother's mother's
bones, a knowing that
this land was the breast milk of
thousands who had walked and died

crossing great plains and
mountains, sacred warriors
led by ancestors
who traveled beside them and
honored their transcendent quest.




Poetic Bloomings #52:  from every ending comes a beginning

Clear direction

We climbed the mountain
for the journey to the top.
We sailed the ocean
to feel the wind and salt air.
We left the compass at home.



WD Poetic Form Challenge: Tanka