footprints in the ice
melt and leave no trace behind
impermanent lives
wash down the gutter and merge
becoming one in the sea.
Ice Prints – tanka 短歌,
02 Mar 2015 12 Comments
in General Poetry, Haiku Tags: brevity, ice, impermanence., life, snow, tanka
kanzen sakura 
Mar 02, 2015 @ 14:38:28
Perfect: “…impermanent lives…” You’re on a roll!
Mar 02, 2015 @ 16:18:12
Thank you! I keep thinking of cherry blossoms and their brevity and it comes out in other places.
Mar 02, 2015 @ 16:20:40
It’s an amazing line. ❤ ❤ ❤
Mar 02, 2015 @ 16:26:10
😊 💗
Mar 03, 2015 @ 08:17:39
The thought of footprints merging with the sea is quite intriguing…
Mar 03, 2015 @ 10:39:46
It’s all that American Transcendentalism I read as a teen and in university. 😊
Mar 03, 2015 @ 16:10:33
The concept of transience, impermanence dominates my thoughts now as I age…my poetry, too. This is so well expressed.
Mar 03, 2015 @ 16:14:40
Thank you so much. I felt this impermanence when my father died 30 years ago. Something always so stable and there suddenly was not. I’ve often looked at city streets, at the footprints and then thought of the Titanic. One of the surveyors that searched the ruins saw hundred of shoes on the ocean floor – their bodies/skeletons had long since been eaten, washed away in the currents, yet, behind were all these shoes. I saw his photographs and wept because of all those lives, those shoes were there as mute reminders of people who were there and suddenly, were not.
Mar 03, 2015 @ 17:11:06
very, very nice! you are one of the few modern-day poets i’ve seen who use the pivot line ~ i love this as the two haiku and the tanka and your third line is stunning!
Mar 03, 2015 @ 17:20:45
Thank you. You do me much honor.
Mar 03, 2015 @ 19:01:09
Becoming one with the sea, love that ending ~ I too admire that cut in the third line ~
Mar 03, 2015 @ 19:47:40
Thank you so very much. I am always so pleased when I get something right.