Saturday, January 16, 2016

Carpe Diem #897 snow viewing


Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,

What a joy to see how you all are interactive with CDHK. I am glad to hear that you all appreciate that new feature I created "Carpe Diem Vernacular". I will publish the first episode of CD Vernacular today, but first this.
As you could have noticed I have created a new CDHK e book "Tepid and Bittersweet" in which I have gathered all the entries of our 3rd and 4th kukai. I hope you all will like this new e book. It's downloadable at the right side of our Kai.

Okay ... today our prompt is snow viewing and it's based on Jane Reichhold's "A Dictionary of Haiku", so its a modern kigo (for winter). There are several examples by Jane, but I love to share first a few haiku by our classical haiku masters.

iza saraba  yukimi ni korobu  tokoro made

well then,
let’s go snow-viewing
till we all fall down

© Matsuo Basho

uma sôna yuki ya fûwari fûwari to

looking delicious
the snow falling softly
softly

yuki-guni no yuki iwau hi ya asagi-zora

a day to celebrate
snow country's snow!
a pale blue sky

© Kobayashi Issa

Credits; Snow viewing

morning snow
where can I throw away
the tea leaves?

© Chiyo-ni

furuike no oshidori ni yuki furu yuube kana

at the old pond
snow falls on mandarin ducks
in twilight

hatsuyukino sokowo tatakeba takeno tsuki

the first snow
emptying itself to its last flake--
the moon above bamboo

© Yosa Buson

All beautiful haiku inspired on the beauty of snow. Isn't that what this prompt is about? Celebrating the beauty of snow?

Here is an example by Jane Reichhold:

giant snowflakes
bring to the window
adult faces

© Jane Reichhold


Credits: Snow viewing by the Sumida River (woodblock-print by: Utagawa Hiroshige)

I am not a big fan of snow, but as it finally covers the Earth I love to step in it barefooted to feel the softness and cold of snow. It's an amazing feeling and it always looks like a fairytale. It's sad to know that through global warming we will not have lots of snow anymore here in The Netherlands. I have seen snow, but to my grandchildren snow must be a wonder ... because they haven't seen it often.

fresh fallen snow
the backyard looks like a fairytale -
on bare foot 


© Chèvrefeuille

I found a nice "modern" haiku about snow viewing written by haiku poetess Katsura Nobuko (1914-2004) and I love to share that haiku here as a kind of closure for this episode.

going snow viewing
one by one the walkers vanish
whitely falling veils


© Katsura Nobuko

I think this episode has become a nice one. So I hope it will inspire you to create all new haiku.

This episode is open for your submissions tonight at 7.00 PM (CET) and will remain open until January 19th at noon (CET). Have fun.
I will try to publish our new episode, 
Yukibare (clear sky between snowfall), later on.

2 comments:

  1. lovely sense of humour in some of those old haiku.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Yet another great prompt and haiku.

    ReplyDelete