A few glimmers

a few glimmers
in the colorless sky
this Christmas day
cars parked side by side
at the cemetery

- first published in red lights, Jan. 2020

A concert

a concert
of power mowers
from near and far . . .
even in these times
the neighborhood hums

— Dance Into the World, Tanka Society of America Twentieth Anniversary Anthology

Not surprisingly, there are quite a few tanka about "these times" in this 2020 anthology!

It's been a long time since I've posted here. Got all bogged down with other things. Trying to inch my way back up.

Tanka Prose

The Art of Gift Giving

For so long, it seemed, when our monetary wealth consisted of no more than a few coins, the Christmas presents we gave our parents were handcrafted. Such as the repurposed plastic face cream jar decorated with a broken string of costume pearls—brainchild of my kindergarten teacher. The macaroni wreath I spray-painted green and gold according to another teacher's instructions. And the wreath my brother patiently fashioned from a plain wire hanger and dozens of red-and-white peppermint candies.

the mistletoe ball
he made as a child
. . . then the way
he always resisted
his mother's kisses

Later, they took to telling us exactly what to give them. More than once from me: a dollar-size bottle of green Williams Lectric Shave for my father and, for my mother, Jergens "extra dry skin formula" lotion. Secretly, I longed for the day of impracticality, of fancy gifts, things fragile and unneeded.

Eventually, that wondrous day arrived. On an early-December expedition to a popular shopping center, our parents dropped us off at a department store where they allowed us, for a short time, to roam around on our own.

Suddenly, there it was—angel bells ringing—prominently displayed on a table. Made of glass, the sort of present I had hoped to find. And miraculously, according to a sign, the price was just five dollars. My brother, a nonshopper to this day, immediately went along with my idea. Heaven knows how he was able to carry such a hefty box all the way to the car and how we managed to disguise it as well as find a sheet of wrapping paper at home that was large enough to fit around it. But in any case, when our mother and father opened the package that Christmas day, to my barely 10-year-old eyes they looked surprised.

their punchbowl set
neatly stowed away
in a closet . . .
those festive parties
we hoped they would have

---

Author's Note: That punchbowl set is now packed away in my own house.

—Haibun Today, Vol. 11, No. 4, December 2017

M E R R Y  C H R I S T M A S ,  H A P P Y  H O L I D A Y S !

Roadside ditches

roadside ditches

brimming with dark water

after the rains 

even they can shimmer

with the right touch of sun

—The Right Touch of Sun, 2017 TSA Members' Anthology

Pleased that the editors of the 2017 Tanka Society of America members' anthology, David Terelinck and Margaret Dornaus, were able to use wording from my tanka for the anthology title. I wrote "roadside ditches" during the wild rainy season of Spring 2016; my mother passed away at night as our region, in southeast Texas, experienced the first bout of torrential rain. Ironically, I submitted "roadside ditches" to the anthology editors 2–3 weeks before Hurricane Harvey struck in late August 2017. I'm a native Texan and have lived for the bulk of my life in Houston (or not too far away from Houston). I'm used to rain—and, conversely, also to drought—though not to such extreme amounts of it. 

Tanka Prose

Clouds

I would build a cloudy House

For my thoughts to live in,

When for earth too fancy-loose,

And too low for Heaven. [1]

—Elizabeth Barrett Browning

If I didn't know better, Elizabeth, I'd say you were haunting me. It all may have started just down the street from a school I attended—at the St. Marylebone Parish Church, where you and your dear Robert secretly married (though I was ignorant of that fact until only recently). I passed by a few hundred times as a youth, never stepping foot inside. Then five years later, and more than an ocean away, I came to live in a college dormitory building that to this day faces a world-renowned library dedicated to you and Robert. So close to you again, yet I continued to be deaf to your presence.

How the decades have turned to vapor. Now, I find myself back in London, roaming the streets as if lured from place to place by your hand, soft and warm. Yesterday, to the National Portrait Gallery and its famous likenesses of the two of you. And this afternoon to this church at Marylebone Road. As soon as I slip in, I notice the plain, dark door labeled "The Browning Room." Ah! It's locked, but I hope you'll give me credit for vigorously rattling the knob. At least I manage to snap a photograph of the heart of the church—from pews to pulpit and grand ceiling—generating stares from a handful of workers before I dash back out.

some have said

cameras steal souls . . .

with this one shot

all I wish to capture

is the splendor within

In search of another wispy trace of you, I next make my way down a section of the High Street and onto quiet blocks known for their opulent, historical residences and medical establishments. My silent gasp as I eventually come upon that famous address where you spent the last eight years of your life before you eloped. Etched quite simply, near ground level, into the building's stone facade: "Elizabeth Barrett Browning . . . Lived in a house on this site." I imagine you, fragile in constitution but your pen bold and strong, crafting your words in a way thought somewhat uncharacteristic for a woman of your time.

a sign 

at 50 Wimpole Street,

once the home 

of a beloved poet: 

The Heart Hospital

Finally, I wind my way through an overly crowded commercial district to Trafalgar Square and then to Westminster Abbey with its numerous pointed arches and sky-piercing Gothic spires. Here, your husband lies buried in the company of other notables, though far away from your own resting place at The English Cemetery in Florence, Italy. I bid adieu to you and yours, Elizabeth . . . but surely only for now.

evensong—

a hush of humanity 

as the sun 

slowly lowers itself

to a choral introit

_______________

Author's Notes:

[1] From "The House of Clouds," lines 1–4, by Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1841). The first-published version (in Athenaeum) is used here; in subsequently published versions, the punctuation is different.

The wording soft and warm is from "Sonnets from the Portuguese 24," line 3 ("In this close hand of Love, now soft and warm"), by Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1850).

The St. Marylebone Parish Church, which has been associated with a great deal of history, was established "sometime after 1086" (per the church's website). The basic structure of the present-day parish church was completed in 1817. Various well-known individuals have attended the church, including Charles Dickens and his son. The Brownings were married there in 1846.

A round commemorative plaque (first installed in 1899), too small and located too high for the narrator to read in person, is affixed to the building at 50 Wimpole Street. Its interesting wording: "Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Poetess, Afterwards Wife of Robert Browning, Lived Here, 1838–1846."

The poet's Georgian Wimpole Street house, which she shared with Barrett family members, was likely torn down in 1935 (sources vary on the date). Curiously, the current structure at that location is associated with a major heart center.

Elizabeth was a semi-invalid for much of her life, apparently suffering from a collection of maladies (the exact set of illnesses is open to debate). Also, it is said she was prescribed opiates, to which she became addicted.

Coincidentally (unknown to the author until she had completed this story), a legend exists that the ghost of Elizabeth haunts the Armstrong Browning Library in Waco, Texas. Also refer to the tanka prose piece "All Things Browning," Haibun Today, 11:1.

_______________

Haibun Today, Vol. 11, No. 2, June 2017

Update: As if I didn't already have enough unexpected Browning and Barrett  "connections" (that I never before paid attention to) . . . A few weeks ago, I was cleaning out old purses and in one of them found a small flyer about a cruise line's shore excursion we went on roughly 20 years ago. It was for Greenwood Great House, a Barrett family residence in Jamaica. 

Tanka Prose

All Things Browning

God's in His heaven—All's right with the world! [1] 

—Robert Browning

"Would you also like to see the balcony on the third floor?" a library attendant asks me. "We keep the door locked, but I can open it for you. The view is lovely."

For two years as a college student, I lived across the street from this lavish Italian Renaissance-style building. Yet until now, decades later, I'd never actually explored inside these walls, nor outside them either. I'd only attended a ceremony or two—in then out, no time for more. Today, Pippa, the bronze statue surrounded by greenery at the front of the long, manicured lawn, comes to life for me . . . drawing me in.

As I step gently through a network of grand rooms in the Armstrong Browning Library (which is both research center and museum), I have trouble deciding where to fix my gaze. Greeting me first: rich-wood paneling, towering marble columns, ornate ceilings, a polished tile floor with a brass-inlaid border. The tranquil countenance of a young man seated at the front desk. Then book after antique book lining shelf after shelf. A multitude of stained-glass windows, sunlit and vivid, almost all of them illustrating poems by Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Browning. Personal furniture. Busts and other sculptures, miscellaneous works of era-appropriate art. And several Browning portraits, with faces that seem to stare pensively at me.

can an artist

capture on canvas

the essence

of a master of words?

this son they called Pen

Many delicate pieces of memorabilia gracefully rest in glass cases. (Not to mention that the library also maintains a vast-and-growing collection of letters and manuscripts.) I realize I could study every trinket and silver spoon, every brooch and snippet of lace, for more time than I have—as well as lose myself in the notes that accompany them. A small traveling tea set, with basket, particularly captures my attention. The story goes that the set belonged to a Mrs. Jean Sherwood, an American art critic, who used it to share tea with a stranger one day while on a train journey in Italy. During their conversation, Mrs. Sherwood remarked that in America Elizabeth Barrett Browning was considered to be the greatest woman poet. The stranger responded, "She was my wife."

this wisp of hair

held tight in the embrace

of a locket . . .

how certain small things

don't harden with age

her inkstand

made of fine porcelain . . .

a chorus

of syllables

spilling onto paper

even leaves

from the laurel wreath

on his casket

saved, arranged in a frame . . .

still a cascade of life

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways [. . .]

I shall but love thee better after death. [2]          

—Elizabeth Barrett Browning 

_______________________

Author's Notes:

[1] From "Pippa's Song," lines 7-8, in Pippa Passes, a dramatic poem/play by Robert Browning (1841).

[2] From "Sonnets from the Portuguese 43," first and last lines, by Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1850).

Inspiration and information for "All Things Browning" came primarily from an in-person visit to The Armstrong Browning Library at Baylor University, Waco, Texas; the library's website and the librarian/curator of books and printed materials also served as resources. The facility, which opened in 1951, "houses the world's largest collection of Browning material and other fine collections of rare 19th-century books, manuscripts, and works of art" (as stated on the website).

The life-size statue of Pippa, presented to the library in 1957, was sculpted by Waldine Tauch.

Sculptor/painter Robert Wiedeman Barrett Browning, or "Pen," was the Browning poets' only child. Several portraits he painted of his parents are displayed at the library.

Elizabeth (1806-1861) is buried at the English Cemetery, Florence, Italy, while Robert (1812-1889) is buried in Poets' Corner in London's Westminster Abbey.

On a personal note, the author was surprised to discover, not long ago, an additional Browning "connection." Not only did she live as a student across the street from the Armstrong Browning Library, but she also attended a middle school barely more than steps from London's St. Marylebone Parish Church, where the Brownings married in 1846.

_______________________

—Haibun Today, Vol. 11, No. 1, March 2017

Announcement: Haibun Today, Dec. 2017, Now Online

The December issue of Haibun Today has been released. I hope you enjoy the collection of voices in the tanka prose section, where poets write about distant Morocco, East Prussia, an old house on Chediston Street, "a turn never before taken," an unforgettable hike, wild ancestral tribes, speeding words, "things fragile and unneeded," a cherished carrot cake recipe, paintings by Renoir and Whistler coming to life, remembering a sister, "visions of Mother," and more.

http://www.haibuntoday.com

Roses removed

roses removed,

rock garden replaced

with asphalt . . .

who are these people

living in our old house?

—Ribbons, Spring/Summer 2017

Here I am again. I didn't drop off the face of the earth!

P.S. This tanka is about the house we used to live in, in England, when I was 10–15. Walked down the street it's on when we visited last year.