Carpe Diem Tokubetsudesu #65 combining animals and seasons

Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,

As you maybe can remember last year I had a special Christmas edition of our Kamishibai feature about haibun. I promised the poet who wrote the nicest Christmas haibun that he/she would have the opportunity to write a Tokubetsudesu episode,

Well ... you know that Sara McNulty of Purple Pen in Portland won this opportunity and this Tokubetsudesu episode is written by her. She emailed a beautiful episode. In this episode she challenges you to write haiku in which seasons and animals go together. Have fun!

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Many haiku master have written poems combining animals and seasons.  I would like you to choose a season or two, and write a poem including an animal.  Below I have listed a sample from each season:

The harvest moon–

rabbits go scampering

across Lake Suwa 

 

   ~ Buson ~

It’s play for the cranes

flying up to the clouds

the year’s first sunrise

 

    ~ Chiyo-ni ~

in from the dark

and out into the dark–

that’s a cat in love

 

   ~ Issa ~

summer rain–

it drums on the head

of the carp

  ~ Shiki ~

 

and my own:

Autumn

black nose sticking up

Is the dog buried under

a pile of leaves?

Summer

hot night

chorus outside my window

tree frog serenade

 

© Sara McNulty

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Well ... a wonderful post and I think this is awesome to play with don't you think so too? Of course I have tried it myself and these are the results:

Winter

after newyear's eve
as the smoke pulls up
prints in the snow

© Chèvrefeuille

And another one, but now inspired on the famous frogpond haiku by Basho:

Spring

old pond
comes to life again
a frog jumps in

© Chèvrefeuille

Ah! I love this "play" with the seasons and animals brought together in haiku. Thank you Sara for this wonderful episode of Tokubetsudesu.

This episode is NOW OPEN for your submissions and will remain open until January 16th at noon (CET). I will try to publish our next episode, frost, later on. For now .... have fun!