Summery Tanka

A tall heron
hides its legs in the shallow pond
and I wonder
can a woman lose herself
in the digital sea


Does she remember
the Vermont flowers
that became salad
for a woodchuck –
my transplanted sister


The tractor
my grandfather bought
more rust than red
the hot-sun fragrance
of dry grass waiting to be baled


Bath towels
tug against the clothesline –
13 candles
and a long argument
about her curfew


     by Carol Purington