Wednesday, October 17, 2018

A Lenten Rengay


My good friend Kari Davidson and I wrote a rengay that appeared in the 2018 Fall edition of Frogpond, the journal of the Haiku Society of America.  A rengay is a collaborative six-verse linked thematic poem written by two or three poets using alternating three-line and two-line haiku or haiku-like stanzas.  

Our rengay was inspired by the Lenten services held at our church.  The last stanza is a tribute to our husbands, who are both in the process of patiently and lovingly walking their mothers home through the fog of dementia.

(Re)Thinking Things

slow snowfall
our walk to the woods 
disappears

Lenten examen
so much accumulation

(re)thinking things
cephalopods
in the old church wall

ashes
the four directions
mapped on our foreheads

cardinals in the church yard
taking off our Mardi Gras masks

white crocuses
walking our mothers
home



by Kari Davidson and Holli Rainwater

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