Tanya McDonald

Happy Valley, Oregon, formerly of Woodinville, Washington

Tanya McDonald started writing haiku in the mid-1990s at Linfield College where she could be found surreptitiously counting out the syllables on her fingers in literature classes. A native Oregonian, she now resides in Woodinville with her husband, their cat, and a ridiculous number of books. She has been a member of Haiku Northwest since 2008. When she’s not composing haiku on buses or on walks, she is working on her urban fantasy novel. Her poems have appeared in Modern Haiku, Frogpond, Bottle Rockets, The Heron’s Nest, Acorn, Dwarf Stars 2010, Where the Wind Turns: The 2009 Red Moon Anthology, and Fifty-Seven Damn Good Haiku by a Bunch of Our Friends. Tanya has served as regional coordinator for the Washington State region of the Haiku Society of America.

sunlit marmalade

she tells me the plan

for her ashes

Jedi mind trick—

the bus driver doesn’t ask

for my transfer slip

nature talk—

she erases native peoples

from the chalkboard

newlyweds

we leave the mistletoe up

a little longer

child’s tea party—

I accept a second helping

of cherry blossoms

expectant father

the tender way he holds

his comic book

the junkyard crane

grabs another car—

wind-tossed poppies

lights out—

a star falls

behind the dresser

missed bus—

the ditch full

of forget-me-nots

deer fern—

my mascaraed lashes

capture a bug

seeds blow back at me

as I wish

on a dandelion head—

the lilt of his accent

that autumn night

all our differences

forgotten—

full moon