BETWEEN BREATHS 
    (Tanka Sequence)
                                                   

         by
          Debra Woolard Bender and hortensia anderson 
           

                                                                  
 

tonight when dreaming
may I turn into a bird
nameless and homeless
in my solitary flight
I'll forget I have no wings
 
 
 

I shall look for you
soaring up above the world
at one with the wind
that carries the sounds of love
with the sweet scent of roses
 
 
 

once I spilled to earth
from a distant silver star
a dewdrop's shiver
banished from a captive sky
by Ama-terasu's loom
 
 
 

how I yearn to fly
to the golden orb that burns
brighter in darkness
these woven gossamer wings
shimmer in their chrysalis
 
 
 

o wild Icarus
how you melted into time
as one born too soon
yet I have arrived too late
to follow my desire
 
 
 

in the sacred space
of plenitude between breaths
throughout history
all of us fall to dreaming
in the River of Heaven
 
 
 

attuned in deep prayer
the air was charged with silence
upon entering
the great void wherein is all...
I have searched so long for you
 
 
 

finally knowing
the search lies within ourselves
our souls become one
as winged birds merge with the sky
at long last, Paradise found!

                             

                
                                                                                   

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