Margaret Chula: A Selection of Tanka

November morning
I help Mother
write her obituary
    wisps of fog
    shroud the maple leaves



meditation
there’s always something
to let go of
    the long slant of ash
        on the incense stick



cleaning out
Mother’s lingerie drawer
the tears in her stockings
sewn up so tightly—
all my unanswered questions



 yesterday’s desires
    what were they?
       a vase
    without flowers
holds only itself



walking the path
through the dark garden
moonlight shines
on the flower
with no scent

A selection of tanka by Margaret Chula. Text as published in Just This: Tanka (Mountains and Rivers Press, 2013). © Margaret Chula. Presented here by poet submission.

Art credit: Untitled image by unknown photographer.


 

Margaret Chula: "Afterimage"

They made us leave our orchards
just before the harvest—my daughter
only three and in captivity.

                 juicy Hood River strawberries
                 melt in your mouth
                 stain our hands red 

Eyelashes white with dust
mouths dry with desert heat
we drag thousand-pound rocks.

                 from a springy green stem
                 plump Rainier cherries
                 taste of sun and sugar 

From basalt boulders, moonscape of sand
and alkaline soil, our restless hands build
patches of beauty at Minidoka.

                 the mighty Columbia
                 Mt. Hood rising from the clouds
                 the nourishing rain of my home 

Shielding my eyes from the scorching sun
I breathe in the calmness of our karesansui—
perfectly raked sand and upright stones.

"Afterimage" by Margaret Chula, from What Remains: Japanese Americans in Internment Camps, poems by Margaret Chula, quilts by Cathy Erickson (Katsura Press, 2012). Presented here by poet submission.

Hear the poet contextualize and read the poem.

Art credit: "Steps," quilt by Cathy Erickson, to which the poem was written.