the invisible cycle: a tanka*

once smooth as petals
will shrink into a crumpled
autumn leaf, waiting
for annual earth’s melting to
fertilise spring’s kids.

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11.20.2020
©2020 Rosemawrites@A Reading Writer. All Rights Reserved.
Photo via Unsplash

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

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For dVerse MTB: Jisei (Japanese Death Poems)

The *tanka is a thirty-one-syllable poem, traditionally written in a single unbroken line. A form of waka, Japanese song or verse, tanka translates as “short song,” and is better known in its five-line, 5/7/5/7/7 syllable count form.