Tanka: Gulls and Geese

a smiling brindle whippet in a red jacket walking across tidal sands

gulls chatter
on the other side of the rocks
looking round
the sky suddenly fills
with a thousand voices

© Xenia Tran

tidal pools, rock pools, rocks and the sea under a blue sky

In other news, we are delighted that my poems First LightEarthlightAccepting the Sun and Shenandoah have been included in The Haiku Way to Healing Anthology edited by Robert Epstein (2022) …

Robert Epstein The Haik Way to Healing Anthology

… and for our Dutch readers:

OchtendschemerRozen Snoeien and Nachtvissen have been included in Aan Het Woord 2022 – Lange Verhalen, edited by Riet de Bakker, Jan Guichelaar, Henk van der Werff and Jean-Marie Werrebrouck, published by Haiku Kring Nederland and Haiku-centrum Vlaanderen (2022).

Lange Verhalen, Aan het Woord 2022 Anthology

Dorpswinkel appears in the Haiku-kantelkalender 2023. The calendar features fifty-two haiku by poets from Belgium and The Netherlands and is available from Haiku-centrum Vlaanderen. A very big thank you to Régine Dendooven and the team for including my poem and putting this beautiful calendar together.

Wishing you all a happy Thursday and a peaceful rest of the week,

with love from Misty and Xenia xxx

Photographs by Xenia Tran, edited in lr.

Tanka Thursday: Round

CMMC: November Pick a Topic from my Photo (Water, Reflections)

Tanka: Beloved Light

a black whippet in a jacket sniffing washed up leaves on the beach

shoreline gold
the scent of autumn
follows the river
each fleeting moment
we turn to the light

© Xenia Tran

a black whippet in a jacket sniffing autumn leaves washed up on the beach

We are deeply honoured and delighted that our poem Where Moss Flows has been published in Dance Into The World, The Tanka Society of America Twentieth Anniversary Anthology (2020). A very big thank you to Michael Dylan Welch for featuring my poem and putting this beautiful anthology together.

Front Cover of Dance Into the World

For a summary of recent poems featured in anthologies please visit our Anthologies page.

Wishing you all a happy Thursday and a peaceful rest of the week,

with love from Eivor, Pearl and Xenia xxx

Photographs by Xenia Tran, edited in lr.

Camera: Canon Powershot SX60 HS, Settings: f/4 – 1/800 s – ISO 200, f/4.5 – 1/1000 s – ISO 250 and f/5.6 – 1/100 s – ISO 200.

Nurturing Thursday: Like a River

Twiglet #206: Looking for Light

Word of the Day Challenge: Beloved

Haiku: Colours of Kindness

two whippets in winter jackets on a forest trail in autumn

fallen leaves
the kindness in
every colour

© Xenia Tran

Loch Dunmore in autumn with glorious colours

It was lovely to see the autumn colours at Loch Dunmore and we came home to some exciting news.

A Wish (the poem from which the second line became the title for our book Between Heather and Grass) and two haiku that were first published in EarthRise Rolling Haiku Collaboration 2020: The Year of the Nurse, have been included in a heart-warming new book edited by Robert Epstein:

front cover of The Helping Hand Haiku Anthology

From the back cover:

Helping or serving is not only vital for survival, it is essential to living fully. As human beings, we all depend on one another in a myriad of ways. Across the spectrum, the coronavirus pandemic has magnified the urgency of mutual care and kindness like nothing else. Through acts of love, generosity, giving, sharing and caring, we make life a little easier, a little more bearable, for one another. We elevate ourselves in doing so and thereby embody the better angels of our nature. Join with the poets and artists from the world as they share the many fruits of giving and receiving help, care and compassion on behalf of fellow humans and nonhumans alike.

A very big thank you to Robert Epstein for including my poems and putting this beautiful anthology together.

Born from and for these extraordinary times, the Helping Hand Haiku Anthology is filled with kindness-centred poems and treats for the soul.

Wishing you all a very happy Monday and a wonderful week ahead,

with love from Eivor, Pearl and Xenia xxx

Photographs by Xenia Tran, edited in lr.

Camera: Panasonic Lumix FZ200, Settings: f/3.5 – 1/80 s – ISO 400, f/3.5 – 1/60 s – ISO 250 and f/3.5 – 1/100 s – ISO 100.

Weekly Prompts Wednesday Challenge: Autumn Stroll

Lens-Artists Weekly Photo Challenge #120: What a Treat!

Tanka: Where Moss Flows

a black whippet in a winter jacket waiting at the corner of a rising forest trail

all is silent
where the dog pauses
eyes full of love
in the shadows of a rock
moss flows and flows

© Xenia Tran

Dance Into the World, Tanka Society of America Twentieth Anniversary Anthology

a large rock above a forest trail with moss growing on top

Wishing you all a very happy Thursday and a great weekend ahead,

with love from Eivor, Pearl and Xenia xxx

Photographs by Xenia Tran, edited in lr.

Settings: f/2.8 – 1/80 s – ISO 100, f/2.8 – 1/60 s – ISO 200 and f/2.8 – 1/60 s – ISO 160.

Sunday Stills: What do the Shadows Have to Say

Becca’s Nurturing Thursday

dVerse Poets: Open Link Night #259

Quadrille: When Old Becomes New

a blue and white whippet running with a ball on the beach

seagulls rest
on sandbars
warming feathers
in Winter sun

while we fly
to catch each ball
and shimmy down
the shoreline

it is so peaceful
to play old games
with new eyes

with every leap
the mountains
speak of wonder

after the
wolf moon

© Xenia Tran

blue whippet in a winter coat with a pink ball on sunlit beach

We wish you all a very happy and blessed New Year and are delighted to have two poems from our blog – Grandma Alice and Frozen Footsteps – published in Chiaroscuro – Darkness and Light, the beautiful anthology created by Mary Grace Guevara, Björn Rudberg and the team at dVerse Poets.

The anthology features more than 100 poets from around the world and is available from Amazon in Europe and North America.

With love from Eivor, Pearl and Xenia xxx

Photographs by Xenia Tran, edited in lr.

Dutch Goes The Photo Tuesday Photo Challenge: Recycle

Daily Post Weekly Photo Challenge: Growth

dVerse Poets Quadrille #47 – Leap

Recent Publications in journals, anthologies, video and full-length collections:

Haibun: Frozen Footsteps

a black whippet in a blue winter coat on a frozen forest trail

Last week’s footsteps look so fresh on the frozen path where our paws leave no mark. The warm glow of the morning sun welcomes us like long lost friends and in this silence I feel like coming home. Coming home to all that is well in the world, to all the magic that nature has to offer and to the simple ways in which the sparkling frost on the trees connects us to the magic within ourselves.

frost rests
in silent caress
of the dawn

© Xenia Tran

a blue and white whippet in a pink snood and silver winter coat on a frozen forest trail

I look up at the snow covered mountain against the blue sky and my mind wanders into the green and purple heathers of September, the view down over the glen and beyond the Monadliath. Winter has landed early here and we change the paths we walk with every season. Wrapped in the arms of nature we go where she leads.

stillness
before the ski slopes
open to laughter

© Xenia Tran

mount Cairngorm covered in snow

With love from Eivor, Pearl and Xenia xxx

Photographs by Xenia Tran, unedited.

Camera: Lumix Panasonic FZ38, setting: iA.

I posted both haiku on twitter as part of my daily ‘Find the Silence’ reflections for Carpe Diem Haiku’s Winter Retreat and revisited the parts of the walk that inspired the haiku to create this haibun for dVerse Haibun Monday.

This haibun appears in:

chiaroscuro__darkne_cover_for_kindle ww

which was published in December 2017 and is now available from Amazon in Europe and North America.

In 2022, we were delighted to learn that Chiaroscuro – Darkness and Light, is going to the moon. It is one of the poetry anthologies selected by Dr Samuel Peralta to be enclosed in time capsules and launched to the Moon, as a message-in-a-bottle to the future.

The Anthology will be part of The Polaris Collection, Dr Peralta’s payload associated with an Astrobotic Griffin/NASA VIPER mission, landing in the vicinity of the Lunar South Pole in November 2024.

You can read more about this collection here and more information about the Lunar Codex here.

The poem is also included in our first full-length collection Sharing Our Horizon, published in September 2018, available in paperback and ebook formats from bookstores and online retailers.

dVerse Haibun Monday Free For All

dVerse Poets Pub Logo

Daily Post Weekly Photo Challenge: Ascend

Daily Prompt: Silent