Lothlorien Poetry Journal

Because I enjoy the variety of wonderful poetry regularly featured in Lothlorien Poetry Journal, I was eager to submit a selection of my writing for consideration: three haiku, one tanka and one haibun. Much to my delight, all five pieces were graciously accepted by Editor Strider Marcus Jones and published on September 5, 2025.

Please enjoy these five poems accompanied by commentary for each haiku and tanka. The haibun, as always, I leave open to your own interpretation.

silver moon
the sky's burden easing
with each raindrop

While this haiku can be an obvious metaphor for tears shed from a release of emotion, deeper meaning is gained when the silver moon is seen as a symbol of Artemis, the goddess of clarity, purity and the divine feminine. Rain becomes a cleansing sacrament, dissolving burdens of perhaps societal constraint or hidden grief, drop by drop, through divine intervention and renewal.

bell chime
a maple leaf tumbles
into awareness

A serene moment of transition and perception, blending sight and sound with the existential. The maple leaf becomes a symbol of enlightenment or mindfulness during meditation.

The Japanese concept of mono no aware, or “pathos of things,” comes to mind as well. The chime echoes and vanishes and the leaf detaches and descends, symbols of the transient nature of life and the bittersweet beauty of impermanence.

rusted weathervane
the orphan's dream
all but lost

This haiku projects fading hope amid neglect. The rusted weathervane stands as a relic of lost direction, paralleling the orphan’s dream—an innocent, ethereal longing that’s weathered into near-nonexistence. It’s a poem on grief, abandonment and the quiet erosion of aspirations, like a child gazing at a broken spinner on a forgotten rooftop, clinging to a dream that’s “all but lost” to time and circumstance.

It can also allude to broader human experiences of displaced dreams in a changing world, the orphaning of traditions, or the slow rust of unfulfilled potential. It’s a reminder that some winds shift us irrevocably, leaving only traces of what once was.

sunlight pours
through the window
and her flaxen hair
indifferent to the heat
building inside me

Structured on the tradition of tanka as a romantic poem, this piece captures a moment of quiet longing through the interplay of external light and internal fire, pivoting from objective description to subjective confession. Indifference adds a layer of melancholy, amplifying the speaker’s isolation of stealing a fleeting glance in a sunlit room, creating tension between the clarity and exposure of light contrasting suppressed emotion. The tanka ends unresolved, leaving a lingering ache.

Tropical Depression

Oh, how nature abhors a vacuum. So eager to fill spring and summer with luxuriant life, then the insatiable need to purify through death. A cycle seeming very natural until wintry fangs penetrate naive necks. Bare the flesh again next year and tell yourself how “this time will be different.”

gentle rain
becoming aware of
hidden storms