Carpe Diem #109, Early Blossom

Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,

Today we have our final prompt of January ... I have read wonderful haiku this month and I am so glad that our Carpe Diem community is growing. We could welcome a few new contributors and I hope that they will stay and post their haiku on Carpe Diem. The day before yesterday we had our last Special by Shiki and I enjoyed reading your haiku inspired on the ones by Shiki. Next month I will share haiku written by one of the female haiku masters, Chiyo-ni, in the Specials.
I have already published our new prompt list for February. That list you can find HERE I think I have created a nice list of prompts for our new Carpe Diem month and I hope to see wonderful haiku written by you, my dear haijin, visitors and travelers.

Back to today. I first had chosen the prompt 'cherry blossom', but that's more a prompt for our March month of Carpe Diem in which I will share classical Japanese kigo (seasonwords) for Spring. So I changed the prompt for today to 'Early Blossom'.

Early Plum Blossom

The Plum blossoms in late winter at the end of February. So this is a nice theme for a new haiku on 'Early Blossom'.

early blossom
is it the cherry tree or the plum?
Ah! that sweet perfume

Or what do you think of the early blossoms of the Forsythia? (I don't know if you're familiar with the Forsythia, but here in The Netherlands it's a common bush and it blossoms in late winter).

Credits: Forsythia

through the open window
riding along with the cold winter wind
the scent of Forsythia

And what do you think about this wonderful haiku written by Issa:

wakamizu ya souto tsukiko[mu] ume no hana

into the year's first
water softly...

plum blossoms 

(c) Issa


It's really a joy to compose haiku on this prompt 'Early Blossom'. So enjoy the read, be creative and share your haiku on 'Early Blossom' here with us all. BY THE WAY: I am a bit behind with commenting on your posts. I hope to catch up ... soon.

This prompt will stay on 'till February 1st 11.59 AM (CET) and I will post our first episode of Carpe Diem for February, 'Verdant' (provided by Bjorn Brudberg), later on today around 10.00 PM (CET).