Splendour Streaks

her territory

illuminates beneath the

starry sparkling skin

as his caliginous cloak

catapults strings of silver

The tanka pictures the scene of a meteor shower. The territory is that of the planet Earth and the cloak belongs to the sable sky.

The poem can also be conceived as an expression of love, wherein the act of a man who appears hard on the outside (dark cloak) opening up his soft inner self (silvery streaks) to his beloved would illuminate her world that is already sparkling with the bond they share.

Credits & Footnote

Inspired by Colleen’s ‘Tanka Tuesday #239’. 

Featured Image: Getty Images.

Pearl

cohesive bivalves

wiggly irritant injures

crusty self-defense

eloquent protective shield

oyster yields a starry pearl

I had 3 different conceptions while framing this tanka, the first being the direct inference of the biological formation of a pearl in an oyster, and the second about a motivational stimulus. The third perspective, not associated with the entire tanka, is a euphemism with a human hermaphrodite.