Carpe Diem #889 desire for spring

Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,

You have to be patient for the list of submitted haiku for our "winter"- kukai, because I haven't had time to create it. From the response on our first e-zine issue of "Souchou" it seems that you are all excited about it. So if you would like to be published in our March 2016 issue of "Souchou" than you can send an email to:

carpediemhaikukaisouchou@gmail.com

Please write "March 2016" in the subject-line. You can email your haiku, tanka, other Japanese poetry forms, an essay or an article before March 1st 2016.

Maybe you have seen that I have opened the possibility to sign-up for our second Renga Party ... if you would like to participate than please let me know it through the comment field of that post. You can find the highlighted link towards that post at the left of the home page of our Kai.

In the introduction to our January 2016 prompt-list you already could have read that I am busy with the preparations for our fourth anniversary in October, I love to give you another "sneak preview" ... I am busy to invite Mr. Herman van Rompuy (former Prime Minister of Belgium and the first President of the European Council) to be one of the guest hosts that month. Maybe you know that he is a haiku poet too and it would be awesome to have him as one of our guset hosts. I will keep you posted on this.

Here is an example of his haiku:

Birds in concert,
one sings above all others.
I don't know its name

© Herman van Rompuy,
    from his book “Haiku” published 2010

Okay ... back to our second prompt for 2016. As you all know this month I have tried to bring classical and modern kigo (seasonwords) together and so today I have a nice modern kigo for you based on Jane Reichhold's "A Dictionary of Haiku", today our prompt is: desire for spring.

Credits: as I see the first snowdrops my desire for spring becomes stronger

Desire for spring not very logical maybe this early in 2016, because we are still in the middle of winter (on the Northern Hemisphere), but on the other hand I can fully understand this "desire for spring". I am longing for spring already, after the dark period of the year I am anxious to see how nature will come alive again. I love winter, but the last decades we haven't had really winter in my country all as a result of the global warming I think. Right at this moment it's however close to zero degrees Celsius outside ... and the weather forecast talks about snow. I hope we will get a little winter here in The Netherlands ...

Jane gives a few examples of haiku for "desire for spring" I have chosen two of them. Both are giving words to desire for spring:

eaves dripping
the candle flame
flickers

winter days
a heart runs without panting
to the beach

© JaneReichhold

Did I say to much?

I wasn't inspired enough to compose an all new haiku for this episode, so I ran through my archives and found a few haiku which fit this prompt, desire for spring:

after the darkness
I am longing for the young leaves
and cherry blossoms 

the blooming cherries
watching them in the moonlight
it's magical

©Chèvrefeuille

This episode is NOW OPEN for your submissions and will remain open until January 5th at noon (CET). I will (try to) publish our next episode, shoukan (less cold), later on.