August Calendar Page

August 2014 - Calendar of Haiku & Photography by Kirsten Cliff

Can't wait to get back to this! Looks like it will be September at this stage. Doing my best to hang in there. (Click on image to see an enlarged view.)

Here's a pic from my birthday: Hubby made me a 'Happy Birthday' sign in Spanish. :-)

The t-shirt was one I purchased with some birthday money, and I was so pleased it arrived in time for me to wear it on the 31st. As well as being a rockin' tee (I love Frida Kahlo!), it was my way of giving a little on my birthday. It's a Shave for Cure supporter t-shirt designed by WORLD, and $17.50 from the sale went to Leukaemia & Blood Cancer New Zealand. Yay!

For My Birthday . . . Give A Little

The last few years here on my blog I've done some sort of giveaway for my birthday. This year I'm encouraging you to pay it forward, and below are some of the deserving causes that are close to my heart at the moment:

During my 4+ months of inpatient chemotherapy for APML leukaemia I had countless transfusions of blood and platelets. They literally helped save my life, from day one of my diagnosis, in March 2010. So please, if you are willing and able, do go and give blood at your local centre. You can find out more about giving blood in New Zealand here.

For those of you unable to give blood for health reasons (like me!) or are just squeamish at the thought, please consider a monetary donation to one (or both!) of the below fundraising projects:

Firstly, emerging writer and fellow sufferer of ME/CFS (commonly known as Chronic Fatigue Syndrome) is raising money to go to London to collect her well deserved prize. Anna Sjardin-Killick (of Annie Blackberry Jewellery) has not once, but twice, won the Write Your Own Christie competition by writing two winning chapters for this worldwide contest, where entrants submit a chapter for an Agatha Christie-style book. You can read more about it on Anna's blog here: http://dreamingwithagatha.wordpress.com/

As Anna says on her write-up:

Through 16 years of illness I have seen many dreams die. One of my dreams has now come true: I have won an Agatha Christie writing competition. An even bigger dream? To meet Agatha Christie's grandson, Mathew, at a special dinner in London.

After years of chronic illness myself (plus cancer!) I can totally relate to Anna's story. I wish her all the best for following her dream all the way to London where she should take her place at the winners' dinner with Agatha Christie's grandson, Mathew, and the publishers. I know she has almost reached her fundraising goal, and I hope this will help boost her over the line.

Support a fellow writer in her success. Anna is certainly a generous soul herself doing giveaways of her jewellery all the time through Facebook, of which I was one of the lucky winners last year.

Donations to Help Anna Meet Mathew can be made here: https://www.givealittle.co.nz/cause/helpannameetmathew



The second fundraising event that I want to draw your attention to is for a Habitat For Humanity house building project in Fiji. This time last year I had just returned home from Fiji having spent a wonderful six days on Castaway Island for my brother's wedding. (You can read my post about it, complete with haiku and photos, here.)

During the trip from the airport to the island resort, I got to see the less fortunate places of those living in Fiji, and I've always thought that I wanted to give something back. Also, with what's happened to my home this year, the Habitat For Humanity cause seemed a perfect fit.

So please join me in donating to Nicola, on behalf of Habitat For Humanity New Zealand, who is going with a team to Fiji in September to help build a house for a family there. Donations are being collected here: https://www.givealittle.co.nz/cause/NicolaFiji



givealittle.co.nz provides Zero fees fundraising for New Zealand, thanks to the Telecom Foundation. 100% of what you donate gets through to your cause on Givealittle. I hope you can help! :-) It's a great way to celebrate my birthday.

 

rising wind

my worries drift out

to the horizon

 

 

May you let yours do the same. ~Kirsten Cliff

Roofless: 3+ months on . . .

July 2014 - Photo & Haiku by Kirsten Cliff

Here I am finally writing a post for my birthday month of July. I was really hoping that hubby and I would be back home by the 31st, but it's not to be. Thankfully I have lots of good news to share . . .

Firstly, a remission milestone: I found out last week that I've been downgraded from three-monthly clinic visits to six-monthly. That is progress, folks! Still monthly blood counts, and a special blood test every three months for molecular studies. But all in all I'm moving further away from cancer. Phew!

As to the progress on my home: we now not only have a new roof, but all the internal walls and ceilings have been erected, as well as some parts of the flooring that needed repair. It's all looking much more like a house now, instead of a barren womb.

I'm told that plasterers are starting this week (that may be "Gibb-rockers or stoppers" to some of you not in NZ). After that it will be internal and external painters, kitchen and carpet installers, plumbers and electricians. Such a big job - I'm so glad I'm not the one organising it all!

The good news includes our contents claim being settled in full, too. All that the insurers said they would repair they have; all they said that they'd replace they have; the rest has been paid out to us to buy the things we need. So yes, you guessed it - I plan to shop it up on my birthday tomorrow! :-)

Many of my fellow poets have their birthdays in July, and here I'll just mention a few. Margaret Dornaus invited poets to write a moon haiku or tanka in celebration of her birthday. You can read the results on her blog here. And Chrissi Villa is asking poets to join in her birthday fun by writing a poem for her inspired by the music that you'll find at the top of her blog here. There will be prizes - find out more about it on the Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/events/704682542937953/

It was also my late Granddad's birthday on July 10th. I wrote this tanka during the summer, the last months of his life:

dreading
the call that says
he’s gone …
two petals left
on the last poppy

A Hundred Gourds 3:3 June 2014

My 4th Cancerversary - "Keep Calm and Haiku On"

This first week of March 2014 marks four years since I was diagnosed and began treatment for acute promyelocytic leukemia (APML). I'm celebrating being cancer free by releasing a new t-shirt design in my online shop Haiku On.

Brought to you by Haiku On - Taking you on a haiku journey. 

http://www.cafepress.com/haikuon

That's right, it's the method that got me through the madness of cancer: "Keep Calm and Haiku On". Isn't she a beauty? Buy yours here.

I first used the phrase "Haiku on!" in my judges report for the junior section of the NZPS International Haiku Competition last year. (You can read it here.) So when I was coming up with a name for my online shop it just seemed right. 

Now putting that together with the well-known "Keep Calm" saying means I have something that not only commemorates my journey, but indeed the experiences of many others world wide who have the haiku bug and just can't stop writing haiku!

I hope you enjoy this new range of tees. Check out the other designs while you're there. And remember to "Keep Calm and Haiku On" :-)

The Detour: A tanka sequence with Pamela A. Babusci

The Detour

A Tanka Sequence
by:  Kirsten Cliff, NZ
& Pamela A. Babusci, USA

a breakfast
of pills & cold toast
out the hospital window
this world i used to know
passing me by

who am i
trapped in this body
invaded with cancer?
looking at the infinity of stars
i touch the hand of grace

still unsure
of how long this ordeal

will last . . .
the stories i tell myself
between waves of nausea

losing all my hair

from chemo... 
gaining
more humility & compassion
on my life's journey
 
a new awareness
of my inner strength—
free in the wind
these Tibetan prayer flags
frayed, but full of colour


Kirsten Cliff is a Leukaemia cancer survivor   
& Pamela A. Babusci is an Ovarian cancer survivor

Published in Skylark 1:2, Winter 2013

You can now download a FREE copy of Skylark 1:1, Summer 2013 here. This tanka journal edited by Claire Everett is hands-down my favourite thing on the haikai scene. Have a read for yourself! :-)

Persistent Rain

bone marrow biopsy --
through my internal tears
a doctor talks
of the persistent rain
on his summer holiday

Kokako 19 (September 2013)

Thankfully all my treatments (and related procedures!) for leukaemia ended a year ago this month. Although I'm still considered high risk, a label that will stay with me for life, I have remained in remission for three years now, so all is looking good. I have also finally completed my collection of haiku and tanka that explore my journey through this experience. It is now with some very generous readers, and then I hope to enter it in the Snapshot Press Book Awards.

My work has just come out in Kokako, A Hundred Gourds and A Fine Line. I've recently had work accepted for Skylark, Presence and Contemporary Haibun Online. And have submitted work to The Heron's Nest, A Hundred Gourds, and the Australia-New Zealand Haiku Anthology. Now I'm getting my entry ready for the Kokako Haiku and Senryu Competition, as well as making haiku cards to take to the fair. Collaborations are still continuing, with Seanan Forbes writing haiku and tanka for some of my photos from Fiji. Never a dull moment!

Don't forget about the Svetlana Marisova Memorial Kukai 2013 (closing September 14th), which marks two years since Sveta's passing from cancer.

waking 
from a dream --
on my lips
I find the word
arohanui*

*Maori for with love/deep affection
RIP Svetlana Marisova

Collaborative Tanka Sequences in LYNX

The latest issue of on-line journal Lynx (28:2) is out now with two tanka sequences I've collaborated on this year, with two different poets.

The first is Uncharted Depths with Kat Creighton (US). This was my first time writing with Kat and I enjoyed the process immensely. I was in the middle of summer, while Kat was in winter, so we decided to write to our own season, which I think worked well. I hope we'll be writing together again soon. Here is a favourite of mine from that sequence:


hoping I'll know
when I've become whole . . .
so much to learn
watching the sunflowers
watching the sun

~Kirsten Cliff


The second tanka sequence is Lost & Found with Margaret Dornaus (US). Margaret and I have written together a few times now and I always learn so much through the process. We already have another in the pipeline! Here's my most memorable tanka from this joint creation:


first dream of the year
diagnosing her pain
as leukaemia . . .
could I find the strength
to do it over again

~Kirsten Cliff


My first dream of 2013 really was about me being a doctor and diagnosing a patient with leukaemia! It's poetry like this that stops me from wrapping up my first book manuscript as I keep finding more to write about and process about my journey with cancer. But I have given myself a deadline this year for completion, so I'll let you know how I get on.

Enjoy Lynx -- it's full of haikai treasure!

touch wood

facing away
from the morning sun
in the bonds
of a silent friendship
my shadow       my grief 

the early bird catches the worm. a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush. make hay while the sun shines. the grass is always greener on the other side. only fools go where angels fear to tread. don't worry, be happy. shit happens. beggars can't be choosers. you can't have your cake and eat it too. if you can't take the heat, get out of the kitchen. out of the frying pan, into the fire. that's the pot calling the kettle black. make love not war. hugs not drugs. give peace a chance. communication is the key. the truth will set you free. no news is good news. cat got your tongue? 

this exhaustion
fills me up
& surrounds me . . .
every word carries
the weight of tears 

let the cat out of the bag. when the cat's away, the mice will play. the cat who got the cream. money makes the world go round. money is the root of all evil. life's a bitch, then you die. anything that can go wrong will go wrong. up shit creek without a paddle. it's just a phase. keep calm and carry on. just do it. break a leg. dream big. love they neighbour. no man is an island. time waits for no man. a stitch in time saves nine. out of sight, out of mind. an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. the writing is on the wall. you can't teach an old dog new tricks. you've made your bed, now lie in it. it'll be all right on the night. tomorrow's another day . . . 

the strain
of a spider's web
across my cheek—
dividing life into before
and after leukaemia 

Haibun Today, Volume 7, Number 1, March 2013

 

Biopsy

biopsy i am my heartbeat

Tinywords, Issue 13:1, 22 February 2013

This was my first appearance on Tinywords: haiku & other small poems. My thanks to the editors for choosing my work, and to all those who left comments at the site, or on my Facebook page, or through email, expressing their enjoyment of this poem. I'm inspired and humbled to know that readers were moved. 

This piece still hits me where it hurts, and will be part of my collection that explores my leukaemia journey. I haven't touched my manuscript for nearly two months, but it's calling my name, and the publishing of "biopsy" may be just the catalyst I need to get going again . . .

hair ties

When I first returned home from the hospital, I didn't really notice them. They were just a part of the normal clutter of home. Not something that needed my attention. But as the days moved on and I sunk back into my life – half the old and half the new – I started seeing them everywhere, and it made me uneasy. Eventually the snippets of tension they were creating, the cracks they were prising open within my coping, meant they had to go.

I went around the house collecting them, one by one, and putting them in a clear plastic bag. How did I ever need so many? One on my desk, one on the coffee table, one in the bathroom, one on the dresser, one by my bedside, one in my handbag...

I put them away in the back of a cupboard. It would be a good 18 months before I'd need one again.

the rain quickens

i should have known

there'd be tears

Contemporary Haibun Online, January 2013, vol 8, no 4

First published in Kokako 17 (September 2012)

A Puzzle of Poetry

I'm pleased to say that I have begun playing with the puzzle that is my first poetry collection, Patient Property. I've been writing for this collection since being diagnosed with leukaemia in March 2010, and it's only recently that my treatment has finally come to a conclusion. That's a lot of experiences to draw on!

At this stage all the relevant haiku, senryu, tanka, and haibun I've written over the past 2+ years is printed out and blue-tacked onto the back of my study door. From there I'm working out in what order the poems should appear, what stays and what goes, and if there are any gaps in my story for which new works need to be written.

Having never done this before, I can tell you it's a challenging job; though no bigger a task than I had expected it would be. I think I'll be a good few months working my way through the ups and downs of this process. I'm very grateful that a few fellow poets have already put their hands up to be early readers.

In the meantime (and long before my book sees the world!) will be my appearance in A New Resonance 8: Emerging Voices in English-Language Haiku. I'm very excited to have my haiku chosen for this volume, which will see a sizable body of my work published in one place for the first time. Many thanks to editors Jim Kacian and Dee Evetts, and all those who have supported my haiku habit over the past six years!

Now I just have to get over the small shock I feel every time I close my study door and am suddenly confronted with a wall of poetry! How is it that I keep forgetting it's there . . .

Welcome to Spring!

September 2012 - Kirsten's Calendar of Haiku & Photography

September 1st marks the beginning of Spring in New Zealand and above is the page I did for my family's calendar. The haiku first appeared with another photo last year in Notes from the Gean here (Sept, 2011), and appeared again this year in Kathy Nguyen's August Blog Bash! with her commentary here. However, the photo in this version was taken at the start of the Papamoa Hills walking track, near my old home, and was later printed in the local paper in the weather shots section. (Click on image to enlarge.)

August was a super busy month with writing, posting and reading haiku daily for NaHaiWriMo. It also was a month of medical appointments for me with several visits to the dentist (a 2nd tooth extraction tomorrow and then hopefully I'm done for a good long while!), a check over of all my moles before summer (no cancer lurking:), and most importantly, seeing my Haematologist at Waikato Hospital. I have now officially finished all my drug treatments for leukaemia. Unfortunately, I will continue my three monthly bone marrow biopsies for a further year because of the risk of relapse. But all signs point to it being done and dusted by next spring. Yay! :)

This month I've already had super news: I've been nominated by the community of New Resonance Poets to enter my work into consideration to join them in A New Resonance 8. Apparently, my haiku have been deemed outstanding and worthy of a wider readership, and I've been invited to submit 50-100 poems. 17 finalists (out of more than 40) will then be chosen to appear in the book. I am so excited and honoured and wowed! And already working on putting my large submission together! :)

Unfortunately, I wasn't able to get my haiku-a-day challenge ready to go for this month, but watch out for it coming soon! Enjoy your spring (or autumn!). This is my first spring in my new home and I'm loving seeing the countryside come to life again after winter with birds, green growth, and baby animals. Happy haiku writing!

Healthcare

August 29th NaHaiWriMo prompt is "healthcare", provided by Dave Serjeant. 

treatment's end

the smell of pink

magnolia petals

Find out more about the 31 Different NaHaiWriMo Prompters for August 2012 here.

The August Countdown . . .

August is a big month for me:

• I'm writing a haiku-a-day for the special 31 Different NaHaiWriMo Promters for August 2012. This I'm thoroughly enjoying. I haven't participated through the NaHaiWriMo Community Facebook page since my writing buddy Cara Holman was a guest prompter back in May 2011. It's great connecting up with lots of new-to-me haiku writers, seeing how others approach each day's prompt, and it's keeping my haiku mind active! If you're not on Facebook then feel free to follow along with me here, posting your haiku for the prompts in the comments section of the relevant day.

• Two of my photo haiga have been featured on Kathy Nguyen's August Blog Bash 2012, with commentary. See the August 13th post and write-up here. Kathy is hosting writers and artists of all kinds this month at her Live Journal Origami Lotus Poetry. I believe there are still places left, so check out how you could be involved here. All participants receive a free gift for taking part, as well as going into the draw to win the Snapshot Press 2013 Haiku Calendar. 

• I entered my first kukai contests this month: Caribbean Kigo Kukai and Sketchbook Kukai. I've been wanting to do this for some time, and finally got myself organised to give it a go. If kukai is new to you, then take a look at this article by Cara Holamn, written especially for Swimming in Lines of Haiku in 2009. It will give you all the links and info you need to get started.

• I'm currently writing rengay and tanka sequences with two of my American contemporaries. The tanka sequences are new for me and I'm revealing in working more closely with this form, and exploring writing tanka on different topics. Who knows where it will lead...

• And the best reason that August is a big month for me... I will finally finish my maintenance treatment for leukaemia! :) I've almost reached the end of two long years, and I'm still in remission. Yes! Thanks to everyone who has supported me along the way. It's been a tough ride at times, and all the poetry has kept me going. I hope you enjoy your August!

August 2012 - Kirsten's Calendar of Haiku & Photography

Above is the August page of the calendar I made for my family. The photo was taken at about this time of year (almost spring!) from Papamoa Beach, looking towards Mt Maunganui, in 2009. The haiku has appeared in a few different forms in a few different places. The closest version to the above was published in the taste of nashi: New Zealand Haiku. (Click on image to enlarge.)

Keeping My Spirits High This July

Almost a week into July already and I haven't yet shown you my calendar page for the month! Below is the July page of the haiku and photography calendar that I made for my family as Christmas presents. (If you search under "calendar" on my blog you will find the other months so far.) Click on the image to enlarge.

July 2012 - Kirsten's Calendar of Haiku & Photography 

The haiku received an Honorable Mention in the Haiku International Association Haiku Contest (Japan) 2009. And the photo was taken at Te Puke Cemetery in 2010 (I think! - have visited a lot of them over the past few years, all for the purposes of photography. I'm an angle hunter:).

I have a few haiku and tanka activities going on this month, all of which are helping keep my spirits up as I progress through my last two months of maintenance treatment for leukaemia.

The first is my tanka competition, The SILOH Tanka Contest, which I'm running to celebrate my birthday (July 31st). The theme is 'Winter Dream' and you'll find all the details for entering at the link above. You can also read and comment on the entries that have already come in here.

The prize, which I'm very excited to be give away, is Richard von Sturmer's unique and amazing DVD 26 Tanka Films. I look forward to awarding the winner with this excellent prize, and then hearing how much they enjoyed it! I have 18 entries already so it's going to be a hard one to judge. I might end up awarding a runner-up prize, of which I have just the thing, so watch this space :)

A few of my friends in the on-line haiku/tanka community are July babies as well so keep an eye out for other contests and giveaways about the blogs. Margaret Dornaus is inviting you to share one of your "moon" tanka on her blog here and she'll be giving away a copy of Makoto Ueda‘s Modern Japanese Tanka.

I'm also finding inspiration in collaboration this month. I'm part of two renku currently being written through cyber-space. The first is a junicho being lead by Sandra Simpson. We began this during the renku workshop at Haiku Festival Aotearoa and have continued on afterwards via the Issa's Snail site. You can pop in and see what we're up to here. I've also started a new rengay (or two, or three...) with Cara Holman, after a short break. If you search "rengay with Cara Holman" on my blog you will find a few that we've written. Enjoy!

Take Five Tanka

I'm so very excited to have three of my tanka chosen for the latest (and last) volume of Take Five: Best Contemporary Tanka. M. Kei and a team of editors from around the world (two of which were New Zealanders! Patricia Prime and Owen Bullock) read over 18,000 tanka published over the course of 2011 and chose the best to come together in this fine anthology.

Although a tanka may be as small as a pebble, it creates expanding ripples in the mind of a receptive reader, ripples that touch far shores, with the polished perfection of the poem as the still center of meaning and experience. ~M. Kei

I'm honoured to be there alongside so many of my friends within the on-line haiku community, and especially two that we've lost to cancer - Svetlana Marisova and Hortensia Anderson. My three tanka to be included are all from my leukaemia journey and I'm grateful that they can now be read by many more people so that they might reach the very souls that need to read them.

browsing

the second-hand books

from my wheelchair

today I decide

not to feel ashamed

Eucalypt 10 (May 2011)

                    planning our wedding

                    in the hospital chapel

                    while I have chemo

                    I am not dying

                    but a part of me is

                    Presence #44 (June 2011)

                                        re-negotiating

                                        my drug regime

                                        with the doctors

                                        I tell them that today

                                        they may see me cry

                                        paper wasp 17:3 (October 2011)


My thanks to M. Kei and his editing team, and to the editors that first published my tanka. You can by your copy of Take Five from Createspace or from Amazon.com.

Rengay Fever!

Ever since my long-time on-line haiku friend Cara Holman asked if I wanted to write a rengay with her back in February, I've been hooked! We have since written eight rengay together and all have been published or have been accepted for publication. And I must say we are pretty pleased with ourselves! It's not only great fun, but a really good learning experience, and it's kept me writing through though times when I wasn't otherwise regularly putting pen to paper.

There is something special and unique about writing in this way. It's kind of like a prompt but not quite; it's so much more than that. It's a conversation through time and place (Cara is in America and we write via email), it's a poetic dance that moves me to new heights, it's a wake up call to look deeper into haiku and Nature and relationship. I love it! :)

The first two rengay that I wrote with Cara have just come out in A Hundred Gourds (AHG) and can be read here - The Scent of Pine and Turning a Corner. I still really enjoy reading these two pieces, especially after a break away from them. This was the first time I've been in AHG as I'd never submitted there before. Please check out the publication if it's new to you.

The first rengay that we had published appeared in Aubrie Cox's Yay Words! project, fox dreams. You can read Dream Catcher here. Cara and I have just written another rengay for the new Yay Words! project, which has been accepted by Aubrie. To find out how you can get in on the fun, read Aubrie's latest call for submissions here. I also wrote a rengay with Aubrie last month; my first with a different partner. We will submit this for publication soon, and then I look forward to writing some more!

The biggest rengay task that Cara and I have taken on was to write about our cancer experiences: me with leukaemia and Cara with breast cancer. We came out with a rengay sequence comprised of four rengay that was at times hard to write, but that seemed destined to be written. We are very proud of this work and the places it took us, and are very happy to have it accepted by LYNX: A Journal for Linking Poets for their October 2012 issue.

So what next? In a couple of weeks I will be at the New Zealand Haiku Conference Haiku Festival Aotearoa 2012, where I'm taking the Introduction to Renku workshop with Sandra Simspon. She has just sent through some notes on the form 'junicho' and asked us to write some possible hokku to start us off on the day. And if you're a rengay writer, then don't miss this call for submissions by Michael Dylan Welch for a 20th Anniversary Rengay Anthology. Cara and I will definitely be getting ours submitted! Talk about rengay fever...

One Particularly Depressing Day...

I think this is the only longer poem I've written about my journey through leukaemia; the rest are haiku, tanka, senryu, and I now have some haibun coming through. This free-verse poem was written in early 2011 and edited for submission early this year. It was then accepted and published in Takahe 75 (Issue 1, 2012).

That day

By Kirsten Cliff

I stopped

lay still

& watched my world move

around me:

the hands of a clock

the branches of a tree

the mothers pushing prams

the kids riding bikes

the cars & birds

flying by

As I watched

my heart altered

for I saw no sign

of God.

I love this cover!

My 2nd Cancerversary

Yep, today is the day that I was diagnosed with leukaemia two years ago. I'm still in remission (yay!) and I have about five months of maintenance treatment left (double yay!) so almost at the end of it all now. If you haven't already, you can read a bit about my leukaemia journey here on the Leukaemia & Blood Cancer New Zealand website (don't worry, there are no gory details!).

I wanted to take a moment to say a huge THANK YOU to everyone who has been part of my treatment and recovery over the past two years: my family and friends, my doctors and nurses, my fellow writers, bloggers, Facebookers and haiku poets. I greatly appreciate your support and encouragement, your kind words and friendship :) You all have made this journey a much easier one to get through. THANK YOU!



          as I'm driven

          to the Cancer Centre

          an old man

          sits on his porch

          playing the guitar 

Ribbons 7:4 Winter 2011

Writing haiku and tanka over the past two years has also helped me enormously in processing my journey through leukaemia. I was so pleased to get an email yesterday telling me that I had four tanka short-listed for this year's Take Five : Best Contemporary Tanka, Volume 4, all of which are part of my cancer collection. (And yes, it was one of my secret 2011 goals to get in this anthology:) Maybe this time next year I will have my book (with the working title, Patient Property) ready and published: my third anniversary would be the perfect time to launch it! 

Avoiding

 

          avoiding
          my old doctor
          at the Cancer Centre
          afraid to meet her
          as a person not a patient

Presence #45 (January, 2012)

Tanka & photograph © Kirsten Cliff