Cold Wet Night
A Tanka
Rain on the trailer
Beating down its dismal song
Drop, by cold, wet, drop
A monotonous rhythm
Driving home … the loneliness
© Ken Chawkin
Fairfield, Iowa
Dec 20, 2006
Published in This Enduring Gift – A Flowering of Fairfield Poetry, 2010. See my other published poems in that book.
This poem was written in the presence of my muse, Sally Peden (Sali), as I was demonstrating to her how easy it was to write a haiku, which extended to this tanka. It tells the story of what was happening at the time. It was a very blissful process. Nothing depressing or lonely about it. I just selected the words that best conveyed such an image and accompanying mood.
Three years later things would change. On Jan 19, 2010, Sali would have to move into Parkview Care Center because of her dementia. Over 9 years later, I wrote this short, sad, 4-line Teapot Poem. In the 5th Response, I explain how it came to be written. Using the creative process described there brought relief from the grief I was feeling at the time.
The Uncarved Blog 
April 10, 2017 at 10:55 am |
[…] me to refine it even more, taking it to the intended level. He published it, five haiku, and a tanka, and later selected it as POEM OF THE DAY: Poetry – The Art of the Voice, by […]
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April 13, 2020 at 1:27 pm |
About 6 years later I wrote this short 4-line Teapot Poem. Scroll down to Responses, the 5th one, to read how this poem came about. https://theuncarvedblog.com/2016/05/14/teapot-poem-by-ken-chawkin/
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