Carpe Diem #148, Aomugi (green barley)

Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,

We are almost through our prompts for mid-spring, we will enter late-spring on March 21th, and I am longing to share haiku on late spring. Late Spring ... all is green and the sun starts to be warmer and stands higher in the sky. The warmth of Summer, longing for the longer days and the sultry evenings and nights.
Back to our prompt for today, Aomugi (Green Barley), one of our last prompts on mid-spring.

Green Barley

I didn't know about the health power Green Barley has, it's used by people suffering from e.g. High Blood Sugar and High Blood Pressure. It's even used by people with cancer to make them stronger and give them a better quality of life. A really strong kind of grain. I think that our classical haiku poets knew this very well as we know that in ancient times all medicins were natural.

I couldn't find an example of haiku on Aomugi (green barley), but what I did found was a wonderful haiku written by Sono-jo, a haiku poetess and pupil of Buson on grasses and leaves in Spring:


te wo nobete ori-yuku haru no kusaki kani

as I go along,
stretching out my hand and plucking
the grasses and leaves of Spring

(c) Sono-jo

I find this really a nice haiku. The grasses and leaves of Spring so soft and pleasant to the touch, so acridly fragrant are the plants and bushes in spring time, that the poetess unthinkinly, almost wantonly, breaks off twigs and branches, sprays and leaves, coming into bodily contact with spring through the feel of things.

Really it's a wonderfully composed haiku. Who am I to try and write a new one? It feels almost like a sin to write a new haiku on this delicate issue for Spring ... I hope to do well and will try to touch the fragility of Sono-Jo's haiku with my own haiku on Aomugi (green barley).

wandering through the fields
the scent of green barley
in the Spring breeze

touching the spikes
of green barley covered with raindrops -
refreshing tears

Raindrops on Green Barley (Aomugi)

so fragile
like crystal
rain on barley

rain on barley
sparkles in the low sunlight -
so precious


I hope that I touched the fragility of Sono-Jo's haiku with these written by me. These little verses giving me joy and I feel the greatness of Mother Nature in them. Who am I that I may write this in praise of God.

I hope that you enjoyed the read and that the pictures and haiku will be your inspiration to write your own haiku on Aomugi (Green Barley). So have fun, be inspired and creative. Share your haiku with our Carpe Diem haiku community.
This prompt will stay on 'till March 20th 11.59 AM (CET) and I will post our new episode, Tsukushi (horse tail), later on today around 10.00 PM (CET). By the way, I have the evening shift so it's possible that I will post earlier, but also it can be later on.