this year and the last I pass time counting milestones. Birthdays. Deaths. Anniversaries. As if in doing so I might preserve them for posterity. Or make them appear more celebratory than I have any right to these days. Perhaps recounting makes it easier to believe inevitable clichés: that happiness, like sorrow, is a choice. That time heals all wounds. That life is fleeting, teetering on the edge before taking a leap—
Perseids...
counting the seconds in-
between stars falling
holds an MFA in the translation of poetry from the University of Arkansas. She recently had the privilege of editing and publishing a pandemic-themed anthology, Behind the Mask: Haiku in the Time of Covid-19, through her small literary press, Singing Moon. The first collection of her own poetry, Prayer for the Dead: Collected Haibun & Tanka Prose, received a 2017 Merit Book Award from the Haiku Society of America.
Her food and travel articles and her poems appear in national and international anthologies and journals, including publications specializing in Japanese short-form poetry such as: Contemporary Haibun Online; Haibun Today; Journeys 2015: An Anthology of International Haibun; Tanka 2020; The Red Moon Anthology of English-Language Haiku (2012-2013); and The Red River Book of Haibun.
Additional work is included in Bearing the Mask: Southwestern Persona Poems (Dos Gatos), Ain’t Gonna Be Treated This Way (Village Press), Red Earth Review, and The Texas Poetry Calendar.
