tanka

a wintrous tanka — June 6

this icy blast
polar provocation
snow bunny flurries — 

but wait...a sunny bench
too late to tan?    just killin it

Image: Lake Illawarra this morning (The eagle-eyed will notice my old collie in the background still photo-bombing the art.)

Day 6 of European Settler winter here in Australia; the First Nations season on Dharawal land is Burrugin. This is the time when the male Burrugin (echidnas) form lines of up to ten as they follow the female through the woodlands in an effort to wear her down and mate with her. It is also the time when the Burringoa (Forest Red Gum – Eucalyptus tereticornis) starts to produce flowers.

And here’s some sunny music from 1951 from Ahmad Jamal with Poinciana (start with the title track). (YouTubers – sorry, could only find title track – but this is lovely too)

plastic tanka — June 3

the daily strew
bottlecaps, cartons, plastic forks
on the face of the beach

like siddartha (frowning)
i realise time’s an illusion

Images: I was looking at dates on my phone and realised these range over more than six years of daily beach walks. Time is indeed an illusion (!)

And for music today, something to keep our eyes on eternity (while reforms to the plastics industry proceed over geological timescales): here’s Hildegard von Bingen vespers sung by the Benedictine Nuns of her Abbey. (Youtubers).

corvid tanka — 29 May

toressian — uk-uk
little crow — high hoarse nark-nark
'straylian raven  — aah-aaah
forest — korr-korr carries far
and little — kar-kar

Image: Crow and Willow Tree, Kawanabe Kyosai, November 1887, public domain, c/- Metropolitan Museum, NY.

A found tanka (kind of) from The Slater Field Guide to Australian Birds by Peter, Pat and Raoul Slater, 2nd edition, 2009 p. 352. Conveniently tanka-wise, Australia has five native corvids, two crows and three ravens.

And for your amusement here’s two wailing ravens

a daily tanka – 27 May

what to write? what to write?

dawn, and in rushes poem 
enunciates ocean
eucalypt bird factory
traffic and so on...

Image: The muses, Emmy Towsey (Taussig) and Evelyn Ippen, Bodenwieser, Ballet in Centennial Park, Sydney, c.1939, photo Max Dupain c/- State Library of NSW on Flickr. I know, not a strict tanka today.

And for music today here’s The Carpenters with the Royal Philharmonic with Masquerade. The whole album is a lush delicious bath. Released in 2018, the album features The Carpenters’ original vocal and instrumental tracks accompanied by new orchestral arrangements by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. Richard Carpenter produced, arranged and conducted. (Youtubers: Masquerade, Album)

an aerial tanka — 26 May

the drone shot shows
how I was wrong  —
actually i live on 

a branch, leaf, a thaw of frost
a paper boat spiralling

Image: ESA satellite image of Western Australian wheatbelt (detail). After James Galvin.

Some poetic licence today. Actually, I live and work on un-ceded Aboriginal land. I acknowledge the traditional owners of the land on which this work was created — the Wodi Wodi people who are the Aboriginal custodians of the Illawarra — and pay my respects to Elders past and present.

This morning’s musical offering some Canadian country twang from Kacy and Clayton with The Siren’s Song (YouTubers).

a daily tanka — 25 May

neon supermarket —
mums among avocados 
cabbages brilliant packs 
out back lobstermen clack
carapaces on the glass

Image: Young girl with cabbage, Firmin Baes (1874 -1943) c/- Wikimedia. After Allen Ginsberg, A Supermarket in California, 1955

And this morning, some guitar for you from Spanish composer Antón García Abril (1933 – 2021) played by Francisco Bernier (maybe start with track 2 Evocaciones) (YouTubers).