Carpe Diem Tan Renga Challenge Month May 28th: "temple in the sky" by Ubugu

Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,

May 2016 is running towards its end and we have only four (4) days to go before we start our new Carpe Diem month June. You can find the prompt-list for June 2016 above in the menu or by clicking HERE.

I enjoy this month very much, because of the idea that we are making this month really together through completing Tan Renga. Because Tan Renga you all like I will bring back our weekly Tan Renga Challenge on Fridays, so after this month you don't need to miss it. By the way I recently created a new part of our CDHK family, "Chained Together", a new weblog about Tan Renga.

Okay back to today's episode of our Tan Renga Challenge Month. Today I have a nice "hokku" created by Ubugu (penname of Robert Gibson, whom was featured in our first episode of "In The Spotlight"). Ubugu created a nice haiku inspired on the Latifa Prayer, but I saw his haiku again after the publishing of our new e-book about the Latifa Prayer, so his haiku wasn't included in that e-book. So I wish to say sorry to Ubugu: "My excuses for this Ubugu". I decided, as a kind of peace offering, to bring it here as the "hokku" of our new Tan Renga Challenge.

Ubugu (penname of Robert Gibson)

Here is his "hokku":

temple in the sky
the road opens
a slice of blue sea

© Ubugu (penname of Robert Gibson)

Ubugu wrote in his email a little explanation for this haiku which I love to share here with you too:

[...] "Your latest prompt,The Latifa Prayer, has my mind so dancing and pondering.

Because I value the reader, I usually don't footnote my offerings. This allows them the freedom to make my words theirs. That said, today I bend that rule.  Below was my very first haiku, inspired by the childhood memory of my first seeing the sea. To me, it addressed the wonder and vastness of our world underpinned by incomprehensible wonders whisper-hinted to our imagination. The succinct beauty of the Latifa Prayer, for me at least, is cut from the same cloth. Reading it for the first time (thanks to you), I sensed connectivity.

I was eight years old when the experience of the aura above the sea and the sea got salted away; took fifty years to distill into this haiku." [...]

"Temple In The Sky"

It took me some time to create my second stanza to this "hokku", but I finally came up with something.

temple in the sky
the road opens
a slice of blue sea                                         (Ubugu)

heat dances above the horizon
childhood memories come to mind           (Chèvrefeuille)

I think this second stanza fits the scene and maybe Ubugu's story inspired me, but I have some wonderful childhood memories ...

This episode is open for your submissions tonight at 7.00 PM (CET) and will remain open until June 1st at noon (CET). I will publish our new "hokku" on our Twitter account.