Carpe Diem Tanka Splendor #3 rain

Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,

This whole month we will explore the beauty of tanka, that wonderful five-lined Japanese poetry form that derived from waka, through the "Ten Tanka Writing Techniques" by Teika. At the start of this month I shared his first Tanka Writing Technique "mystery and depth". In Tanka these are very important. In ancient times the tanka was used for mystery and depth of love between secret lovers. They hide their deeper feelings of love in their tanka and that makes tanka a beautiful poetry form and maybe for the purpose of hidden love even better than haiku. However ... in haiku you can also hide secrets of love. For example:

midsummer night -
the scent of Honeysuckle
tickles the senses

© Chèvrefeuille

scent of Honeysuckle
the smell of dew on her flowers
Holy incense

© Chèvrefeuille

Honeysuckle

Okay ... back to tanka and "mystery and depth" ... As I started this month I wasn't aware of the fact that I am not a great tanka poet, but I love to learn how to write tanka and I hope I can help to improve your tanka writing skills.

Today's prompt rain can be used perfectly with "mystery and depth" and that I hope to show in the tanka I wrote inspired on this episode:

ah! that summer rain
the perfume of the moist soil
tickles my senses
I lay down, naked, in her arms
surrounded by Honeysuckle

© Chèvrefeuille Well ... I hope I have inspired you to create tanka with depth and mystery hidden in it.

This episode is NOW OPEN for your submissions and will remain open until November 7th at noon (CET). I will (try to) publish our next episode, Teika's second Tanka Writing Technique, later on. For now .... have fun!