*
pressed
in my diary
the guava blossom
you picked
has lost its fragrance
*
rain-soaked
scent of pine duff
I still walk
our favourite slope to watch
paddy ripening in the fields
*
heads thrown back
a pair of black-necked cranes
fling their call to the sky
I hope they will never know
the keening cry of separation
*
stars coursing
in the statuary pines
I no longer pray
but now embrace
solitude in your absence
Sonam Chhoki finds the Japanese short form poetry resonates with her Tibetan Buddhist upbringing. She is inspired by her father, Sonam Gyamtsho, the architect of Bhutan’s non-monastic modern education and by her mother, Chhoden Jangmu, who taught her: “Being a girl doesn’t mean you can’t do anything.” She is the principal editor and co-editor of haibun for the United Haiku and Tanka Society journal, cattails.