fireworks
in a summer sky . . .
each year
the rose moon reminds me
of darkness and light
July is my birthday month, and since I like to celebrate my birthday all month long and since July is, astrologically speaking, ruled by the moon, I’m asking readers to post their “moon” tanka here (as a comment) between now and my birthday, July 20. In exchange for this small indulgence, I’ll be awarding a copy of Makoto Ueda‘s Modern Japanese Tanka to my favorite tanka . . . or, if I can’t decide on a favorite (a distinct possibility), I’ll simply pull a name from my birthday hat–a battered but well-loved bonnet–to determine the winner.
P.S. I’m not the only birthday girl holding a tanka competition this month. Check out Kirsten Cliff’s giveaway at her blog Swimming in Lines of Haiku.
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About Margaret Dornaus
I’m a writer and a teacher, as well as a haiku-doodler. I live in a beautiful woodland setting, surrounded by native oak forests, that inspires me to record haiku snapshots of luna moths and our resident roadrunner, and even an occasional black bear as it hightails it across the top of my road, my mongrel dog barking at its heels as I watch with wonder.
My work as a travel writer has appeared in publications from The Dallas Morning News to the Robb Report. You can find examples of my travel writing–as well as excerpts from a travel memoir I’m working on–at my other WordPress site, Travelin’ On.
What more than that do you need to know? Only that I started this blog with an eye toward collaboration. Got a haiku? Send it my way. . . . I’m all about new visions & voices.
Best, Margaret
Haiku-doodle 
Happy Birthday–and Birthday Month–Margaret! Here is my “moon” tanka:
all day long
moving words on paper
hunting
what I meant to say—
a hazy moon
Moonbathing 5, fall/winter 2011
Thank you, Jenny! Love this . . .
Really love this, Jenny, and remember reading it in “Moonbathing”. Thanks for sharing it again here! 🙂
I’m so happy to share a birthday month with you and Kirsten. 🙂 Here’s a tanka I wrote and posted on Yay Words, for Aubrie Cox’s “I Doodle, You ‘Ku” Challenge back in March:
the frenzied dance
of moths around the light
a crescent moon
invites me
to slow down
Likewise, Cara! Happy birthday to you, as well. And thank you for this lovely tanka!
I like this one very much, Cara. Good work.
Thank you, Linda. It’s so nice to see you here!
Happy, happy birthday. Here is my tanka present. 🙂
the moon is slipping
wafer strands over bare trees
their summer dressing
scattered in orange and russet
the moon and I are sisters
we wax and wane in darkness
Thank you, Yousei, for the well wishes and your lovely poem.
moon child
a different face
every evening
still you come
to my light
~~Happy Birthday, Margaret… I based this tanka on a haiku I had accepted in Acorn awhile ago. I too am a moon child….:-)
Oh, I love this, Merrill! Happy birthday to you as well!
This is going to be a wonderful gathering of moon children! Happy Birthday to each moon child!
Hi snowbird – did you post a tanka on my blog for my SILOH Tanka Contest? Received it but please also send through your name, country and email address so I can contact you if you win! Thanks 🙂
Thanks for gathering us together for your July birthday, Margaret! 🙂
Here’s my moon tanka:
Why did my DNA
mutate…
pacing this shoreline
my answers come bathed
in healing moonlight
Happy birthday, Margaret, and to all the July babies out there in haiku and tanka land! 🙂
Thank you, Kirsten. And Happy Birthday to you! Thanks, as well, for such a moving tanka. Keep basking in the moonlight . . .
With such wonderful tanka, I have a feeling Margaret is going to have to pick a winner from the hat! 🙂
I have my hat at the ready, Merrill!
will he watch her
being naughty tonight
through the hole
in the bamboo shade
the man in the moon
Love this, Johnny! Thanks for the entry . . .
You bet Margaret.
Hi Margaret, Happy birthday in advance. Here’s my entry:
moon sparkle
on a dew drop
at dawn
the sound of
a birthday kiss
Thank you, Angelo. I love this . . .
born to
a summer moon
always yours
to hold
a firefly’s light
Happy birthdays Maggie, Merrill, Kirsten and all. This tanka is part of a longer poem for a beloved friend also born to a summer moon. My rising sign is Cancer so I too am very much influenced by the many moods of the moon. Andrea
Thank you so much, Andrea. I love the juxtaposition of “a summer moon” to “a firefly’s light”!
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summer of `’78
a fallow field at dusk
our first kiss
a flash of dancing fireflies
under a waxing crescent moon
Thank you for visiting, Linda, and for your lovely tanka. Best, M.
Nice one, Linda! Ah, summer of ’78– that was the year I graduated college. Good memories.
marimba moon
the wild woman
restrained
dances herself through
my goosed flesh
Happy Birthday. . .may you dance all month long! ; )
Thanks, Terri! Love that phrase “marimba moon . . . “
Nice work, Terri. I, too, like the phrase marimba moon.
thunder moon
rises over the water
louder and louder . . .
the music thrums
in my blood
Happy early birthday, Maggie!
Love it! Thank you, Aubrie . . .
hey maggie!
Just noticed I repeated the ‘sky.’ Not sure how that works in tanka. Anyway want to change it to this
oh! waning moon
riding the dark blue night
my love can you see
underneath the starry skies
does she too search for me
am so thankful for ‘comment moderation’ – always a boon for people like me who think after they write 🙂 LOL
Thank you, “just,” for the birthday tanka.
I almost missed this, mi hermana!!! So lost am I in other spaces…but here is my gift: para mi querida hermana de mi alma con muchos carinos!!!
creeping
out of daylight
old moon–
have you returned for the eyes
you lost on hers?
…may he find it again! Haha…happy birthday! You know that it’s also my month a week after yours, though at the time of my birth, my moon was in your sun (Cancer), which explains our deep-as-the-seas connection, as well the sun-and-moon intrinsic oneness.
I would not have let you miss it, hermana! Mil gracias por tu dulce regalo de cumpleaños.
so bright
my reflection
in the car window
the moon
smiles back
Happy birthday, dear Maggie!
~ Tina
Thank you, Tina! What a wonderful and happy tanka!
Hi Margaret! I’m new at this – and here it goes:
Bali moon
you drift in and out
my thoughts …
as if you have the right
to keep me mesmerized
Happy birthday in advance!
Asni Amin
Thank you, Asni, for the lovely tanka!
Happy July B-day, Maggie (and Cara and Kirsten and others)!
I don’t happen to have many “moon” poems – but for fun, here’s an old one I remembered…Hope you don’t mind!
I rarely gaze
at the moon,
one thing in my life
I know
will never change
—Simply Haiku, Autumn 2006
Thank you, Janet, for the birthday wishes and the tanka! BTW, I enjoyed your “baggage” tanka in the recent Ribbons!
at the end
of a lonely day
craving
the company of the moon
he’s a faithful man
Happy Birthday, Margaret!
Lovely! Thank you, Patricia.
chrysanthemum moon
i peel off another layer
of sorrow
that nobody
will notice
Pamela A. Babusci
A Thousand Reasons 2009
Beautiful! Thank you, Pamela!
happy, happy, margaret — hope it’s been a wonderful birthday month (so far!) for you!
milk moon
my bare feet on this
wood floor
if I walk to the edge
will I hear your voice?
Thank you, Angie! Love this . . .
To Margaret Dornaus–may your birthday be filled with great joys.
new summer moon
on your birthday the mystery
of life deepens
hidden among woodland blooms
the pathway to bold journeys
Thank you, John, for the birthday wish and beautiful tanka!
I just want to share this with you, hoping it’s a tanka. I’m still a newbie. 🙂 I wrote it for The Collaborative Photo-Haiku Project http://tifholmesphotography.com/cphp/2012/07/july-2012-series-entry-15/
summer dream . . .
under the moonlit sky
your soft whispers
telling me how much
you’ve missed me
Advance happy birthday!
Thanks, Christine. It is, indeed, a tanka . . . and a lovely one at that!
Hi Margaret, hope you are having a wonderful birthday! Here’s my moon tanka.
strangers before,
strangers after the night–
you leave no footprints
on sand, only the shimmer
of sea in amber moonlight
Thank you, Sanjukta! I love your tanka! And, yes, a good birthday so far . . . Last night it rained–after month-long drought and heat. This morning, the elephant ears I potted outside my front door are holding the moisture on their leaves, and I remembered the absolutely beautiful poem of yours I read some time ago about the “colocasia” bowing their heads with rain. Stunning! Could you send it my way again, so I can re-read it?
Oh, I found it here! So I’m going to re-post it now, for my birthday, because I love it!
nowhere to go,
no dream to dream,
this afternoon
only the murmur of rain
on the colocasia
–Sanjukta Asopa
Ribbons, Fall 2011
I can’t think of a better way to spend my birthday!
July moon
the aesthetics
of joy
so seamlessly I hold in
the name of your rugged lips
Ernesto P. Santiago
Thank you, Ernesto! I’ve copied your tanka to my other post for entry into the drawing I’ll be holding after midnight tonight! Best, M.
Thank you, Margaret. I am so glad you like that one and absolutely honored by your featuring it here!
You are most welcome, Sanjukta! I was very struck by that tanka when you sent it in for my Poetry Month post , and I had missed it when it appeared in Ribbons . . . , and you taught me the botanical name for elephant ears as well!