We who with songs beguile your pilgrimage / And swear that Beauty lives though lilies die, / We Poets of the proud old lineage / Who sing to find your hearts, we know not why ... (James Elroy Flecker)

26.5.21

Waiting: Tanka


Waiting: Tanka


Leaves fall.

I’ll wait for you

all winter.

With new leaves,

shall you return?


*********


Are you only

a warm weather lover?

I dreamed of you

hugging me through the cold –

how long must I wait?



I see these tanka as variations on a theme rather than a sequence.


Written for my  own prompt: Waiting, Weekly Scribblings #71 at Poets and Storytellers United. What with Lili Marlene featured in the prompt as an example of waiting, I felt like trying something a little romantic. And it's autumn here. 


25 comments:

  1. Two wistful waiting tanka, Rosemary, and definitely variations on a theme. ‘Leaves fall’ sets the scene immediately in the first one, and the new leaves bring hope, while the question in the second one is a perfect hook.

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  2. I love how different shades of longing are expressed in each piece. These are gorgeous.

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    1. Thank you. Your 'different shades of longing' is a lovely way to put it.

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  3. Rosemary, these two are sharing a theme fit together so very nicely but yet not sharing the same situation. I like the contrast of the seasons, winter dominating. Keeping warm puts a smile on this reader. Then my mind runs to animals huddling and orphan kids sharing one blanket. We have a lot of that here, blanket sharing among the homeless and the poor little kids delivered to our country from Central America apart from their parents.
    ..

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    1. That sure puts things in perspective, Jim. Many people have lives far more difficult than I will ever know; even get born into lack and struggle.

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  4. As always, Rosemary, saying much with little. Both are plaintive and questioning.

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    1. Not autobiographical ... but I suppose we've all been through such feelings at some time.

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  5. I see why they are variations, but at the same time they feel like a sequence to me. In the first one, the speaker sounds patient, not absolutely sure that the subject would return but sort up hopeful. In the second one the speaker's tone sounds frustrated, as if they've been waiting for a very long time and are losing patience. I like them both, for different reasons.

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    1. Well of course they were written in sequence and go from autumn to winter, so you have a point. :)

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  6. We all ask, "How long?" It's a question that appears over and over again in the Bible. And there's never an answer.

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  7. Replies
    1. Thank you, that's the tone I was trying for: just slightly melancholic.

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  8. Bravo, nice ones
    Happy Wednesday

    Much💚love

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  9. Romantic is right up my (our) alley.... all is well in the land of dentists and doctors!!

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  10. Unrequited love, lucky are those who have never experienced it.

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  11. I dread the leaves falling...raking, and looking at my neighbour's house all winter.

    Love this style of poetry!

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    1. It is better in Australia – very few deciduous trees! But we do have some, and also have imported European varieties which do well in the southern parts of our continent. I remember the raking from whenI grew up in Tasmania. Now I live in the sub-tropics and it's only my frangipani tree that sheds.

      I love tanka too; must try them more often.

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    2. I love the way these tanka are joined. Gave me a wistful feeling.

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  12. Awaiting is sometimes boring, but when it is reciprocated, delight will loom. Nice lines.

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