Gabriel Rosenstock’s Tanka Series – 2
1.
the hummingbird is away again
in a flash, beloved
where did it go
teach me never to stray
far from Your radiance
![](https://www.modernliterature.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/tanka1-631x1024.jpg)
2.
to see You, beloved
through other eyes
eyes of a different kind
eyes of extinct species
beings we have yet to know
![](https://www.modernliterature.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/tanka2-589x1024.jpg)
3.
is not each hour
a preparation
for the final hour
Your name on my lips
what else could it be
![](https://www.modernliterature.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/tanka3-660x1024.jpg)
4.
ah! store You away
as the squirrel stores its horde
or enjoy You in the now
empty hazelnuts of long ago
only their emptiness remains
![](https://www.modernliterature.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/TANKA4-831x1024.jpg)
To read more Tanka by the same author click here
About the Author
![](https://www.modernliterature.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/gabriel-and-gandhi-300x238.jpg)
Gabriel Rosenstock is a bilingual poet (in Irish & English), haikuist, tankaist, playwright, novelist, short story writer, essayist, translator, writer for children and champion of ‘forlorn causes’ – the phrase is Hugh MacDiarmid’s. He is a Lineage Holder of Celtic Buddhism and a member of Aosdána (the Irish academy of arts and letters). Among his awards is the Tamgha-i-Khidmat medal (Pakistan) for services to literature. Gabriel’s most recent volume of poetry is Glengower: Poems for No One in Irish and English (The Onslaught Press).