Here are 5 Tanka exploring the themes suggested by the prompts (Answer, Luna, Old, Eyes, Negotiation):

➰

Whispered answer floats

On moonlit breeze, ephemeral

Luna's secret shared

Ancient wisdom in her glow

Illuminates the unknown

➰

Old eyes, deep as wells

Reflect a lifetime of tales

Silent negotiation

Between past and present tense

In each weathered wrinkle's fold

➰

Luna's silver face

Negotiates with inky sky

For moments of light

Answering night's dark silence

With her old, knowing pallor

➰

Seeking answers, I

Gaze into your ageless eyes

Luna overhead

Witness to our whispered pleas

Time-worn talks of give and take

➰

Negotiation's dance

Luna waxes, wanes above

Old as time itself

Eyes search heavens for answer

In celestial diplomacy

〰️〰️

I copied ‘Words in Bloom’ idea to use several prompts in one post. Here’s the way my Tanka came together.

Luna is another name for the moon, right? I thought that was an interesting starting point. I sprinkled "Luna" throughout most of the poems - sometimes directly, sometimes just hinting at it with phrases like "moonlit breeze."

For "answer," I played around with that idea in different ways. Sometimes it's pretty straightforward, like "Whispered answer floats" in the first poem. Other times, it's more about searching for answers, like looking up at the sky hoping for some cosmic insight.

The "old" theme was fun to work with. I tried to evoke a sense of age and wisdom - you've got old eyes, ancient knowledge, that sort of thing. It ties in nicely with the moon, which has been around forever, hasn't it? Or … has it?

For "eyes," I mostly used it literally - talking about gazing or searching. But it's also about perception and understanding in a broader sense.

"Negotiation" was probably the trickiest to fit in naturally. I tried to think of it in different ways - the back-and-forth between past and present, or even imagining the moon negotiating with the night sky for its place.

The lovely thing about tanka is how you can layer these ideas. So in each poem, I tried to mix and match the themes. For instance, you might have the old moon negotiating with the sky, or ancient eyes searching for answers.

For me, it’s all about creating these little word-pictures that hopefully make you think about how these ideas connect. Does that make sense? What do you think about how it all came together?​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​