Poetic Musings: Hourglass Tanka by Denis M. Garrison

and when
the sand runs out?
the stillness
of the hourglass
and I are one

Ash Moon Anthology, 2008

Denis M. Garrison

Commentary: The rhetorical question in the upper verse is used to evoke a well-known Western literary image of the sands of time running out, effectively establishing the thematic and emotional context for the poem. And then "the stillness," the structural focus of the poem, is inserted between the upper verse and the lower, "where the conventions of the West lead us to expect a homily about the fleeting nature of time, pleasure, glory, et cetera, Garrison's embrace of stillness is an unexpected surprise" (M. Kei, "Introduction," Take Five: Best Contemporary Tanka, Volume II, 2009), reshaping our most existential sense of being in the flow of time in a radical way.

Note:  Below are some haiku/tanka written in response to M. Kei's comment on the conventions of the Western literary image of the hourglass:

where the conventions of the West lead us to expect a homily about the fleeting nature of time, pleasure, glory, et cetera,...

layers
of this blue life
winnowed
by the hourglass
my furrows deepen

Poetry Nook, 5, April 2014

Debbie Strange

time running out of time hourglass

NeverEnding Story, May 4, 2014

Al Fogel

I’ve scribbled
around these lines on “poet’s dream”
for a week
if only I could turn
the hourglass of my life

Tanka Journal, 44, April 2014

Chen-ou Liu

exchanging poems
we sparkle with love
at dawn
the hourglass
fills with tiny diamonds

A Hundred Gourds, 2:1, December 2012

Chen-ou Liu