Skylark, Vol. 7, Number 1, Summer 2019

a century ago,
the Iolaire foundered . . .
my cousin's paintings
bring those who were lost
home to their families


Note: My cousin, Margaret Ferguson, an artist and doctor living on the Isle of Lewis, painted over 100 commemorative portraits of the men who perished in the Iolaire tragedy on New Year's Day, 1919.


here, and yet, not quite


a ghost train
of fog skims across
the lake . . .
at our next visit,
I hope you will know me

for a moment,
two waterspouts dance
across the lake . . .
I still feel your hand
on the small of my back

Note: In a review of Stacking Stones: An Anthology of Short Tanka Sequences (editor M. Kei), Jenny Ward Angyal makes mention of the following tanka from my sequence 'lightfall':


black swans
softening the edges
of my darkness
I gather threads of light
unspooling in their wake


Jenny goes on to say:

'Threads of light' run throughout the wonderful variety of voices and styles, content and form to be found in this volume, as poets explore the labyrinth of human life, erecting as they go small monuments of words to mark the way.

Skylark, Vol. 6, Number 2, Winter 2018

the folded wings
of blue butterflies
appear drab
sometimes we overlook
our own brilliance


I meet
the yellow gaze
of a she-wolf
how primal this need
for connection


the egg sacs
of pirate spiders
d a n g l e
like golden lockets
full of promises

Note: This issue also contains a lovely review of Three-Part Harmony: Tanka Threads by Jenny Ward Angyal which may be accessed via the "Books and Reviews" page of this blog.

Skylark, Vol. 6, Number 1, Summer 2018

Honoured to have my photograph chosen for Skylark's inaugural cover contest:

Individual kyoka and tanka:

macular

degeneration

I see

more clearly now

than ever before

a mirage

of mountains beckons

us homeward

we don't know their names,

but they know ours

they have

scarcely enough

to survive

and yet, this music

under the bridge

Selected Tanka Sequence for Another Chance to See Feature

Going Back

big sky morning

ancestral homesteads

felled by wind

hollow bones whistling

a song I used to know

barrelling

down washboard roads

between fields

plumes of the past lingering

on all I left behind

at day's end

light beams splintering

across shorn fields

on this moonless night

I, too, am camouflaged

Note: Going Back was first published in Ribbons, Volume 11, Number 3, Fall 2015

Skylark, Vol. 5, Number 2, Winter 2017

honeysuckle
swathes my doorway . . .
its sweetness
calls to something hungry
that used to live inside


So Much More Than


we walk
under laden boughs
into silence . . .
a place of worship,
this architrave of snow

we make camp
in a dark sky preserve . . .
no stellarium
could rival
this magnitude of light

we become
so much more than
our wounds
lovely are the bruises
of crushed magnolias


Outcasts


the quiet
susurrus of stones
with each wave . . .
a refugee hushes
her frightened baby

silhouettes
of deer splashing
in puddles . . .
the bullied child
never that carefree

a cowbird
lays eggs in the nest
of her host . . .
too many people
feel they don't belong

Skylark, Vol. 5, Number 1, Summer 2017

Vestiges of Here and There


thistles among
weather-beaten bones
of the past
across this stolen land
so many spirits roam

an empty space
where the croft once stood
my toes curl
into that same soil
rooting me to home

lichen-splotched
stones emerge from tundra
we rest here
among the ancients
on the edge of extinction

Skylark, Vol. 4, Number 2, Winter 2016

a fish
falls from the sky
what magic
when eagles dance
talon-to-talon

Skylark, Vol. 4, Number 1, Summer 2016

ease me down
into cool waters
plait my hair
with green willow roots
make of me your anchor


this is the song
of our humpback hearts
when we listen
to the ocean breathing
blood returns to water

Note: This issue also contains a lovely review of Warp and Weft, Tanka Threads by Jenny Ward Angyal which may be accessed via the "Books and Reviews" page of this blog.

Skylark, Vol 3, Number 2, Winter 2015

Totems


When I live on the prairie, I long for the sea. When I live by the water, I yearn for the land. I am always living either half-empty or half-full, my totem selves pulling me in opposite directions.


my weathered skin
crusted with salt and dirt
the aftertaste
of this life and the last
where do I go from here

Skylark, Vol. 3, Number 1, Summer 2015

the staves
of my brittle breast
split open
you set me adrift
in uncharted waters

Skylark, Issue 2:2, Winter 2014

quietude
then, a circle of loons
tail-standing
the sound of wild abandon
in our throats


the cleft
between mountains
a chalice
spilling alpenglow
onto our shadows

Skylark, Vol. 2, Number 1, Summer 2014

when we
were chinook clouds
arching
across evening
swallowing the sunset

Skylark, Vol. 1, Number 2, Winter 2013

Translated into Gaelic by Calum Ferguson


on father's coffin
the cowboy hat and polished boots
of a prairie Gael
the skirling pipes
that sing him home