Carpe Diem #573, Rough Sea (Oct. 2012)

Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,

Today I will bring you our first regular episode of our second anniversary month October 2014 and as you could have read in the introduction to our prompt-list for this month (see above in the menu line) I will look back to the previous months and years of Carpe Diem Haiku Kai.
I started this daily haiku-meme in October 2012 to give my passion, haiku, a place to be on the WWW and as I started Carpe Diem Haiku Kai wasn't the title of this weblog, but it was just Carpe Diem. I remember that I first thought this will be not a very big success. So the first idea was to do Carpe Diem until the end of 2012, but ... as I saw the responses I thought "this could be a success so I will go on with it for another year".
And ... well Carpe Diem is still here and has become a success. At the start of this daily haiku meme I had not that much response, but I re-call that MMT, Björn, Mark Redfearn, Amrit (Greenspeck) and Carol and ArtMuseDog were contributing to Carpe Diem from the very start. During the first months I tried to bring great prompts and I even had  the CD-Specials. The first featured haiku-poet was Basho whom I see as my master.

Logo Carpe Diem October 2012

The "re-prise" prompt this day is "Rough Sea". I published this prompt's post on October 19th 2012 and it brought immediately a haiku in mind by Matsuo Basho. This haiku was part of "The Narrow Road to the Deep North", one of Basho's haibun.

the rough sea
flowing toward Sado Isle
the River of Heaven

© Basho (1644-1694)

Sado was an isle for banishment.

What I like about this haiku is the contradiction between the "rough sea" and the "River of Heaven" (the Milky Way), because the sea is rough and the Milky Way sounds soft and sweet. It's a wonderful haiku I think.

Credits: Woodblock print Rough Sea by Hiroshige (19th century)

Our Ghost Writer of yesterday Yozakura (1640-1716) has also a haiku written about Sado Isle and I love to share that one here also:

an outcast I am

day dreaming along the seashore;

Sado Isle beckons

© Yozakura

What a strong feeling I get from this haiku by Yozakura ... a feeling of loneliness and despair. Yozakura, shortly after becoming an orphan, is wandering along the seashore and sees in the distance Sado Isle ...

Here is my attempt to write an all new haiku inspired on "rough sea", will not be an easy one, but I have to try of course:

"save our souls!"

ships struggling with the storm

the rough sea

© Chèvrefeuille

I remember that a few weeks ago a ship almost sank in a heavy storm. Sadly one of the sailors lost his life as he was trying to save one of his friends. He was hit overboard by a big wave. 

This episode will be open for your submissions tonight at 7.00 PM (CET) and will remain open until October 4th at noon. I will publish our new episode, fire, later on. For now ... have fun, be inspired and share your haiku with us all here at Carpe Diem Haiku Kai were we are celebrating our second anniversary.