Issue 6 – September 2026 – Tanka Doha 1
scent of plucked mangoes
permeates our entire house ...
losing count
of the times I’ve thanked
our fifty-year-old tree
how well
I remember the pirate
with his eye patch …
the frenchman’s creek
my sixteen-year-old heart
Kala Ramesh, India
a tanka-doha (twin tanka)
Definition of Tanka Doha:
Kabir, a 15th-century Indian mystic-poet-saint, is famous for his Doha – couplets of 24 sound units. Ignoring the sound units, I found I could pair tanka to tell a story. We have tanka sequences, but there is something special about a twin tanka, which says so much in just 10 lines. Personally, the link and shift that happens in the white space between the two tanka is sheer magic. A title is not needed. A tanka doha will stand on its own like a haiku or tanka, without crutches!
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