Magenta – a Sedoka

Here’s my latest submission for this week’s #TankaTuesday challenge.  I started doing these a few weeks ago, and I am having a lot of fun with them!

The challenge for this week is to write a syllabic poem about your birth sign’s color. I knew there were birth stones, but not colors. This is why I like the blogscape so much. I learn something new every day!

So, I’m an Aquarius, and my color is magenta. I made a face at first because magenta is basically a medium purpley-pink, and I’m not a pink kind of girl. I joke that black is my favorite color only because nothing darker has been invented. Then I laughed because I realized that I’m currently wearing a magenta shirt. It has a really neat design of a dragonfly on it. I have always liked dragonflies.  I consider them my totem.

For my syllabic form, I picked a Sedoka. This is two or more Katautas put together. The Katauta is a three-line poem that resembles the haiku. What makes it different is that a Katauta is specifically addressed to a lover. It’s also considered an incomplete or a half-poem. The Sedoka is the complete poem as the lover answers back.

So what would happen if a person was smitten by a dragonfly…

Kataomoi*

Sunrise colors drip

On mist-gemmed magenta wings

Fly away with me

—

Deadly beautiful

Our destinies can not cross

My years are your days

*Kataomoi is the Japanese word for unrequited love.