Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,
First a few announcements. Upcoming weekend Georgia (a.k.a. Bastet) will be your host here at Carpe Diem Haiku Kai. And she will host our regular posts. Than ... Rallentanda has emailed me her choice of haiku for her e-book, which she won with the first Kukai, and she will be our featured haiku poetess next month. She has send me really gorgeous haiku and I am looking forward to creating her e-book.
Yesterday we had a nice haiku which was the closing verse of Basho's "Weather Beaten Diary". Soon we will start on the trail with Basho along the Small Road to the Deep North, his most famous haibun ever.
Today we have a nice haiku which he wrote on one of his shorter journeys. With this haiku "growing melons" came a preface too and in that preface Basho tells us that he visited an old man who was gone in seclusion, but what is seclusion? I found a wonderful definition of "seclusion" it's a kind of estrangement from the world, living in solitude and that brought a card from the Great Arcana of the Tarot into my mind, maybe you can remember that episode it was called The Hermit ... I even used it last month in our quest for peace of mind.
Why do I bring this up? Basho lived a life in which he traveled a lot, he had a great group of followers, disciples or students, but he still remained a hermit, a poet living in seclusion estranged from the world .... In the haiku for today in a way he writes about himself I think. He was (maybe) in a sad mood wishing he had his own place with a family or something. It's just a guess, but this is the feeling which I sense in the haiku for today.
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| Credits: "overgrown hut" |
I visited the overgrown hut of an old man who had gone into seclusion.
growing melons
"I wish you were here"
in the evening coolness
© Basho (Tr. Jane Reichhold)
A wonderful haiku, in a wonderful translation by Jane. It will not be an easy task to write/compose a haiku inspired on this one, this beauty, that's why I have chosen to use baransu to write a new haiku inspired on this beauty by Basho, using his third line as my first line:
in the evening coolness
the rustling of full grown leaves
a hermit's life
© Chèvrefeuille
Well ... I like this haiku, what do you think of it? Can you find the "path" on which I walked to create this haiku?
This episode is open for your submissions tonight at 7.00 PM (CET) and will remain open until May 15th at noon (CET). I will (try to) publish our new episode, shaded by blossoms, later on. For now ... have fun, be inspired and share your haiku with us all here at our Haiku Kai.
Interesting haiku of yours, Chèvrefeuille - you suggest a hermit needs an experience behind him or her, seen in the 'evening' and 'full grown' leaves, though you are also painting his or her natural environment. I like 'audio' haiku very much.
ReplyDeletei loved the haiku, but I focused on the loneliness instead. To have none to share the melons with..
ReplyDelete