Cattails

I couldn’t be more pleased to have three submissions accepted by the editors of cattails for their biannual Spring/April 2025 issue—one haiku, one tanka and one haibun.

smoke-filled sky
the dove's wing
trembles

a lifetime learning
how to love...
in old age
an empty forest
where the tree falls

Indigo Flame

Yesterday was unusually cool, but the heat wave has resumed. Through the wrought iron fence, a duskywing flutters past a rose whose pink petals briefly waver. Tracing dizzying zigzags across the yard, it suddenly comes to rest on the back of my hand. We study each other here in the calm shade, then a gentle flicker of wings, and I’m left alone again. How quickly yesterday’s breeze is forgotten.

windswept day
in and out of my thoughts
a butterfly

Thank you to Haiku Editor Geethanjali Rajan for choosing my haiku for this issue of cattails. I am humbly grateful to be included among my peers.

A very special thanks to Jenny Fraser for honoring my tanka as an Editor’s Choice selection accompanied by her wonderful and personal commentary on the poem:

Also, a special acknowledgement to Sonam Chhoki for graciously sharing her wisdom, experience and kindness in my correspondence with her.

The Spring/April 2025 issue of cattails can be viewed here.