131 thoughts on “Wilderness #Tanka”

    1. Thank you, Martha! I am so thankful to have found tanka poetry. It has become the perfect form to express feelings and experiences that other forms of writing just won’t do.

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            1. Thank you, Miriam. In 2009, she moved to New Hampshire to be close to me. She lived 25 minutes away, so I could visit her regularly. My husband and I took her on day trips with her until she became too frail.

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              1. So glad you spent many memorable years with your mom, Liz! A few of my friends moved close to their adult children. I think it’s wonderful. I wish to move closer to my only daughter in Oregon, but my husband wants to stay in California, his mom is 89, and five married siblings live around here. We’ll wait for some years to see what happens.

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                    2. Oh what did I say? It must be a typo. When I used the phone, sometimes the auto type changes my spelling. Yes, my second granddaughter was born on March 22. I cancelled the trip around March 11.

                      She is seven weeks old, can smile, can look at my two and a half granddaughter, even started lifting up her head on her tummy. I missed all of her early development.

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                    4. My immune system is low after the chemo in 2009. My daughter didn’t want me to get sick and triggering the effect on the little ones.

                      I knew it was good for the kids that I didn’t go. ❤

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  33. I love the contrast between the “soaring trees” and “a small lone figure” as well as that between the “cold winter sun” and the heat of a “fearless protector.” Your photo evokes memories of my own experiences in this environment. The sunlight and shadows are exquisite. I’m there!

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  43. If I could write a tanka, which I can’t, my tribute to my mother would be similar. I have the same type of memories from my childhood years in Alaska and Minnesota. She was so small and so strong, and winter was her playground. So was summer, for that matter. And it was only a few years before she died that I finally realized what an exceptional woman she had been for her time and place.

    Thanks for bringing good tears to my eyes, Liz. And I hope my personalization of your work doesn’t sound as if I in any way am trying to appropriate your own memories and immense talent.

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    1. Thank you for sharing your memories of your mother, Ranee. I’m glad my poem prompted them for you. I’ve come to realize and appreciate the role that poetry, and some fiction, can play in enabling readers to experience and reflect on their own memories in new ways. There are poems I’ve read where all I can think is, how could this poet possibly have known what I’ve experienced and been able to articulate it so well when I haven’t been able to?

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