Jenny Ward Angyal

By Jenny Ward AngyalGibsonville, NC, USA forestsburning far awayI bowto the wood thrushsinging orisons unseen I follow a path along the brook, through mountain laurel and rhododendron. The stone hut stands half-hidden among the trees, its roof green with moss. Thick, curved walls enclose an oval of coolness in the summer heat. Elliptical windows admit a little light.  As my eyes adjust, I notice a message chalked on the sloping ceiling: maybe the world isn’t dying . . . maybe she’s heavy with child *Note: The second tanka is a ‘found poem.’~From my book Earthbound: Tanka-Prose & Haibun, 2022

By Jenny Ward AngyalGibsonville, NC, USA I used to thinkit would last forever—the swallowscoming home each year,the green hills blossoming on my pathone pure white featherI carry with menews of a dying planet,a widening war the bridgeacross the creek—I cannot seethe barred owl calling from the other side a water striderdimples the surface,an otter rises and vanishes . . .the stream flows on spring beauties bloomamong tiny handprintsin the mudI kneel on the bankof the passing moment ~First published as the Afterword to A Worn Chest by Joy McCall & Tom Clausen, 2022   Reprinted in my book The Wind Harp: Tanka Pentads, 2023

By Jenny Ward AngyalGibsonville, NC, USA Hokusai painted them, Issa wrote about them, and Mao did his best to exterminate them.  It’s true that Eurasian tree sparrows gorge themselves on spilled grain.  So, during the Great Leap Forward, the Four Pests Campaign encouraged schoolchildren to kill as many sparrows as they could, tearing up nests and smashing eggs. People beat pots and gongs to drive them from their roosts until the birds dropped from exhaustion.  A billion sparrows died. With few birds left to eat them, hungry locusts swarmed through grain fields and rice paddies. Upwards of forty million people…

By Jenny Ward AngyalGibsonville, North Carolina, USAA glimpse of white wing bars, half hidden among juniper and honeysuckle. Uncertain, I find a picture on my phone and the app plays several notes of a song. At once a tiny being—no more than a quarter of an ounce—confronts me, scolding loudly, warning me away from a world that belongs to him.  sunlit hedgerow—the kinglet revealshis ruby crown

By Jenny Ward AngyalGibsonville, North Carolina, USA all of usfrom blowfly to blue whalebirthright citizensof a dying planet . . .who will have the last word?

By Jenny Ward AngyalGibsonville, North Carolina, USA No cougars are supposed to roam the Appalachian mountains.  They’re supposed to be extinct here, killed off or driven out by logging half a century ago.  And yet . . . here and there a single footprint lingers in damp earth, a wisp of hair clings to rusted wire, a blurred snapshot betrays the image of a ghost-cat slipping through shadows. And once, echoing down the mountainside where I stumbled mile after mile over rain-slicked rocks in gathering dusk—once, a long, unearthly scream to pierce the heart.  I utter a prayer into the darknessthat enfolds me—may…

By Jenny Ward AngyalGibsonville, North Carolina, USA milkweed bloomsat the meadow’s edgeshe waitsfor the monarch’s blessingunder a shattered sky one strand snapsand the tapestry ravels—at duska mockingbird singsthe old crone’s song soft rain fallingthrough a starless nightshe weavesits many-colored threadsinto a shroud for the earth ~Stacking Stones Anthology, summer 2018

By Jenny Ward AngyalGibsonville, North Carolina, USA butterflies flutterfrom the artist’s brushin memoriam—a river of monarchsonce flowed across the sky slow spiralsup the summer sky—scavengerscleansing my mindof its dark residue I follow a pathof spindrift oak leavesto a clearingwhere no cabin ever stood—its hidden hearth my home the daycloses its circlearound mesilver voicesre-enchant the dusk to keep at baythe wolfish dreams,I sleepwith gentle sorrowcradled in my arms ~red lights 15:2, June, 2019

By Jenny Ward AngyalGibsonville, North Carolina, USA the slow beatof an egret’s wingswhiteagainst dark oaks—earth’s annunciation vulturescradled on the windendlessly rockingthe tall pines singboth lullaby and dirge the milk-white fleshof a giant puffballbroken openunder the moonan old woman’s grief with this dropof russet inkfrom the acorn capI write nothing—the oak said it better a rift in the wingof a wild gooseflying headlongthrough gathering duskthe fate of the earth ~red lights 16:1, January 2020 Commentary on "Beyond the Threshold" by Tish Davis Jenny Ward Angyal’s tanka sequence, “Beyond the Threshold” is exquisitely crafted.   There is a subtle progression in each of the…

By Jenny Ward AngyalGibsonville, North Carolina, USA morning lightgilding the treetopsas they fallsplinters lodgein my paperbark heart the soundof limbs being brokenas if on a wheel—bloodless the fallen hollies,the heart of pine laid bare the blunt thrustof a bulldozer,the shudderof tissues torn apart—who cries for the earth me too a box turtlecrushed by the skidder’s treadat the edgeof the leftover woodsthis barricade of spiders’ silk plumes of smokerise from the clearcutsilvery as ghoststhe sound of wind chimesbefore the hurricane may the wordsthat tumble from my tonguebe turned to moss—creep over the wounded land,bury the cities of men ~Ribbons 15:1, winter…

By Jenny Ward AngyalGibsonville, North Carolina, USA the screamof a red-tailed hawkover the woodwhere dozers wait—my silent cry an echo the giraffeearns a placeon the Red List—Gaia’s ghosthaunts my dreams stacking stonesto build a cairn . . .balancingEarth’s bones,I awaken to vertigo fifty yearsfrom discoveryto extinction—a Pagan reed-warblersings in my heart 4% survivedthe Permian extinction,giving riseto all that lives . . .and to my flightless hope ~Ribbons 13:1, Winter 2017

By Jenny Ward Angyal Gibsonville, North Carolina, USA jack in his woodland pulpit preaches . . . the right of the rain to nourish the oak the right of the leaf to capture the light, to grow a forest hostelry for a myriad of lives the right of the tree frog to cling to the tree, singing harmonies of moon and shadow the right of the owl to hunt the mouse, the right of the mouse to hide . . . the rhythm of their hearts the right of a woman to kneel by the creek on its way to…

by Jenny Ward AngyalGibsonville, North Carolina, USA a boulder lieswhere the glacier left it—clear as crystalthe old crone’s memoryof fire and of ice graniteunder a thin peltof grass . . .climbing the hillher bones grow weary paper birchesbending to sweepthe earthshe brushes a leaffrom her hem a cedarat the top of the knollriven long agoby lightning . . .the rain in her hair empathycarved deep in the barkof a sapling . . .gnarled fingers tracethe lines of her scars ~red lights 18:2, June 2022