Tanka by Charlotte Kell

Brightly ribboned presents
cluster the tree’s base:
candles flicker and dance
even now, as russet boughs
rootless, lie tossed in this ditch.

Wine. Candles. The dark.
Ah, the beauty of it all!
Mirroring the sea’s depths,
his dark eyes search for the heart’s key:
soft lips feather my mouth with kisses.

Look how the wet pebbles
somersault and slide, churned
by the sea’s soft pull!
Forge kisses to my sultry mouth.
the sea’s spume can drift with the wind.

Let the silence of the skies
flock the air with outstretched wings:
See heaven’s barricades,
dappled with the earth’s reflection
mirror our love’s brute and holy force.

Anchor of my love,
like a diamond ring’s reflection,
leaps between the sun’s shadows
and spins, like a tossed breeze
through an open door, to my heart.

Hidden among earth’s
vagrant clods, God’s spirit surges.
fills corn with burnished light.
Spotlighting this tiny field in gold
the sun gleams, pillowed by clouds.



Three weathercocks shape
the perilous pinnacles
of Magdalen’s tower:
entrenched in these depths,
kindled, corpulent love blossoms.

Find a place to spade
Your sad weapons of defence
In a new grave,
So that with this elegy
I can rest, in peace, near your heart.

From inside my conch
I hear waves drum rhythmically
against a sandy shore.
Alone, I will search for a path
to escape the Minotaur’s maze.