More misunderstandings! Yesterday when I was considering adding some of the new poems to the book, Taking Tanka Home, I was looking at the sheets of the print-out. Usually Werner looks at my new stuff and makes with an 'x' those he finds good. On these sheets there were only a couple of marks.
My heart sank and I thought, "Oh dear, the new stuff is no good at all. If he only found three worthy of his marks."
This morning at breakfast I apologized to him for the poor quality of the last batch of tanka and he was astounded. Evidently he found all of them good enough to publish and the 'x' only indicated his choice when I had written variations. Whew! What a relief! Suddenly the sun shines and I have gobs of energy.
However, instead of working on the book I worked on the 'handout' of tanka books and websites I want to have for the speech. I needed a morning of routine organizing book titles to calm my jaded nerves.

three roads
one a blood we share
one a river

when our canoe tips over

we follow our breath