There are a number of bloggers playing along. One of these is Christie Wyman at Wondering and Wandering.
Yesterday she posted a tanka she wrote using paint chips. Tanka is a form that uses a 5,7,5,7,7 syllable count. My students and I took out the paint chips, and I suggested they find three in the same color hue, so their poems would become about that color in some way. Then we tossed around the Haikubes. Karson said, “This is fun!” Music to my poet-teacher ears.
I pulled out three cards in the orange color range. The words were field of poppies, fresh-squeezed, and sun rays. I thought of pictures I had seen of California poppies. The haikubes mixed it up a bit to make for a compelling poppy tanka.
Field of poppies in
Southern California
fresh-squeezed dripping dots
Precious whispers glancing up.
Flying sun rays from the sky.
—Margaret Simon (draft) 2019
Kim Douillard is a photographer-teacher-blogger living in Southern California. She posted this image on Instagram of poppies near her school’s playground.
Reflections on the Teche 