My Poetry

“Blue of Pure Mind,” chōka & hanka

Colleen M. Chesebro
Image by Peter Lomas from Pixabay
the blue throat chakra...
a nexus to the divine
blue hues of heaven
serene, calm, tranquility
found in a blue sky,
slow down, make time to be still
listen to your voice
obey the stillness within
blue the color of pure mind

uncluttered by thoughts
in silence, one can perceive
blue—the purest mind
open wide... the throat chakra 
your seat of creativeness

© Colleen M. Chesebro

This week for #TankaTuesday, I asked everyone to select one of the seven chakra colors to feature in their poetry. Color is a powerful poetic tool, and when used in poetry, it helps to convey our thoughts and feelings.

I wrote a chōka followed by a hanka (tanka) according to the cheat sheet:

“The chōka (long poem) was the storytelling form of Japanese poetry from the 1st to the 13th century. It is unrhymed and written in alternating five and seven-syllable lines that end with an extra seven-syllable line. The early form consisted of a series of katuata joined together. (A katuata is 5-7-7 (19) onji, or 5-7-5 (17) onji) and is required for your poem. It is composed of any number of couplets made up of alternating 5-7 onji (sound syllables) per line. In English, we can only treat the onji as a syllable. A nine-line chōka is 5-7-5-7-5-7-5-7-7 or 5-7-7-5-7-5-7-7-7. Chōka often were followed by one or more short poems called hanka, or “envoys,” summarizing, supplementing, or elaborating on the contents of the main poem. Often, a tanka would serve as an envoy.”

Word Craft Poetry Cheat Sheet

Published by Colleen M. Chesebro

Colleen M. Chesebro grew up in a large city in the Midwest. Keen on making her own way in the world, she joined the United States Air Force after graduation to tour the world and find herself. To this day, that search continues. 💜 Today, she’s a Michigan Poet who loves crafting syllabic poetry, flash fiction, and creative fiction and nonfiction. Colleen sponsors a weekly poetry challenge, called #TankaTuesday, on wordcraftpoetry.com, where poets learn how to create traditional and modern forms of syllabic poetry. 💜 Colleen’s syllabic poetry has appeared in “Hedgerow, a Journal of Small Poems,” and in “Poetry Treasures,” and “Poetry Treasures 2: Relationships,” including several other online publications. She’s also received several awards for her flash fiction pieces from the yearly Carrot Ranch.com rodeo events. 💜 Colleen created Unicorn Cats Publishing Services to assist poets and authors in their book publishing needs. 💜 When she's not writing poetry or crafting short stories, you’ll find her digging in her garden, or playing with her two unicorn cats, Chloe & Sophie. Most days you can find her writing poetry on wordcraftpoetry.com. 💜

49 thoughts on ““Blue of Pure Mind,” chōka & hanka”

  9. Pingback: Word Craft Poetry#TankaTuesday #Poetry Stars No. 283 | #TastetheRainbow, Chakra Color Poetry

  12. Ah…. yes deep breaths and wonderful sighs before home repairs and then after.
    I am looking forward to putting mostly everything back in its place and continue to ‘downsize’ so there is less to worry about. 😀

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      1. I can’t imagine living in an area that has rolling blackouts… you’d have to really becareful then.

        Even though we live in an area where the stuff is under the ground… there are neighborhoods with stuff above. So if a pole gets jimmied, fried or bumped into we can have an issue. Last month we were down for about three hours. But it was at night – so it wasn’t so bad.

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        1. No rolling black outs here… the cable box was replaced, and it was defective. It took 3 days to get them to replace it. Our cable and electric are all under ground—thank goodness. We’re in the same situation. In January, a train took out a Cable tower in some high winds. We were without cable for 3 days so they could repair the tower. It’s always something, isn’t it? LOL!

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          3. A least a few good things this month…
            1) home repairs almost done
            2) Early gym membership
            3) found out a loved one will be going into full time memory care.
            4) have an out of state nephew visiting
            5) Old Farts Bowling starts the last week of the month.

            Hope you can find some good things too!!

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  16. Lovely poem, Colleen. So serene. I drew in a big blue breath while reading. I like this form, mostly because I get to use lots of syllables. Lol. The responses to the prompt have been wonderful. ❤

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Thanks for your comments. 💙

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