Moonrise

Tsukimi is the Japanese festival of the autumn moon. 

My affection for this holiday goes far back in my life; I've always had an affinity for the full moon. And then there was that September in Hong Kong... and the fascination with Japanese culture starting in high school... Well, I suppose it all bundles together.



I have been reading tanka for a few years now, always affected by the same sort of melancholy that alights upon my psyche under that Tsukimi moon. Autumn always makes me introspective, due to the onset of the dark time of the year; the last rose of summer, the fading sunshine, the end of the cycle.

I've also been composing tanka for a number of years - making observations, counting syllables, crafting pivot lines. I haven't to date actually written much of it down, and so of course it's been lost. I started a tanka some time late this spring, and finally wrote it down and finished it a few days ago. (Yay! for follow-through!!) 

My skills are by no means developed. I still spend a great deal of time with a thesaurus, searching for the right evocative word. But I have started to make note of natural images and occurrences which can describe metaphors. It helps that I've been in an ironic state of mind recently. 

I write in a modern American style which is similar to the classical Japanese, although differences in language changes the meter somewhat. The form is generally in numbers of syllables (5/7/5/7/7) or an equivalent stanza length (s/l/s/l/l), although this is not rigid in modern tanka. At least as important as syllable count is the design of the verse; it begins with an observation and ends with a feeling; in the middle is a pivot line, or transition that connects the upper and lower parts. Tanka depends on metaphor or irony to communicate meaning, and so - although most of what I write is ostensibly about nature - the substance of the verse is about relationships.

"Relationships" of course treads very closely to the heart. A lot of what I'm writing is very personal, and I'm not comfortable putting all out there yet. So, if something pops up out of the recent past, it's because it was always here and I've just decided to uncover it.