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Tanka by Stanford M. Forrester

 

memories of you
fade with each falling
gingko leaf . . .
I realize now 
you never loved me                                                             

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for Takuboku

on a winter afternoon
i found
my old playground--
empty swings
in the wind

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because it is autumn
and because
the wind and her red hair
blow in her face
I fall in love with her again

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endless heat--
like you
all the peony petals
have fallen
without a sound                                                

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new year's eve
i step on
a frozen puddle
the moon
is hollow                                   

American Tanka,13, 2003

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Stanford M. Forrester is a poet, editor of bottle rockets: a magazine of short verse, and past president of the Haiku Society of America.

Reading Poems to Eat by Takuboku Ishikawa created an interest in him for writing tanka.

He is also the first charter member of the Tanka Society of America in Connecticut.

Stanford is a Buddhist in the Pure Land Tradition.

 

 

 

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