Issue 2 - September 2025 - Tanka prose 2
Night Secret
As evening fades, I sit against an adobe wall that releases the day’s warmth, mingled with the sweet scent of blue clematis spilling over the trellis. In this quiet, I often hear my mother calling from the edge of the desert, a faint whisper at first, gradually growing louder as it drifts over the sagebrush mesa and alfalfa fields. Her voice catches briefly in the agave’s spiny leaves and purple starthistle, before pausing in a giant sacaton’s feathery plumes. There, it seems to dissipate, only to rise again—richer, more urgent, unwilling to let go—and coils around me, demanding something beyond what a child can offer.
a barn owl glides
through this starry light...
the whiteness
swallowed into the silence
of an indigo sky
Dru Philippou, USA
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