Fragile Beauty

darkness is splintered
by coloured light through stained glass
echoes of rainbows
will the homeless find solace
in the warmth of the windows?

© Kim M. Russell, 2016

My response to Carpe Diem Tanka Splendor #19 Teika’s 7th Tanka Writing Technique “clever treatment” (prompt: fragile beauty)

In this new episode of our Tanka Splendor month Chèvrefeuille has introduced Teika’s 7th Tanka Writing Technique ‘clever treatment’, a witty or ingenious treatment of a conventional topic. He says that the style must have been popular because Teika had 31 poems in his anthology of style examples, including one by the Archbishop Jien (1155-1225) on the topic of ‘snow’ from the Shinkokinshū, #6:679:
niwa no yuki ni / waga ato tsukete / idetsuru o / towarenikeri to / hito ya miruran

in the snow only
I was in the garden
leaving footprints
will people think someone brought
comfort to my loneliness?

In this tanka you can feel the loneliness in a very strong way. Chèvrefeuille would like us to create a tanka with this technique for the prompt ‘fragile beauty’. He has given us an example of one of his own tanka:

hands full of snow
the Great Buddha still smiles
with compassion
an old beggar and his bowl
bows in honor sharing his bread

© Chèvrefeuille