I don’t often join the Poetry Sisters challenge, but I felt this month’s was within my reach: a tanku which is a tanka in conversation with a haiku. I recently attended a workshop, Write Bites with Georgia Heard and Ralph Fletcher. Georgia’s writing prompt was to write about a word. One suggestion she had was to have a conversation with the word. That draft led me to create a tanku around one of my two words for this year.
Believe
What do I believe?
Remove my rear view finder
Need a reminder–
blinders to understanding,
“I don’t believe you heard me.”I say to the wind;
It says, “I believe in you.
That’s true, you will see.”Margaret Simon, 2025
Reflections on the Teche 