Carpe Diem honors Jane Reichhold (1937-2017) G.) whisper of rain

photo © Sandra Simpson

Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,

Welcome at the last episode of our special Theme Week in honor of Jane's 80th birthday. We have given her the attention she deserves and now we are going on with our lives. Jane decided to end her life last summer ... and if she would have been alive she would have become 80 on January 18th 2017. Because of that respectable age I decided to create this wonderful Theme Week to inspire you, but most of all to honor Jane. Jane has meant a lot for the haiku and tanka world, but also for several of us personally and I am proud that I can say that she was my friend, my mentor and my inspiration.

Today to close this Theme Week I have chosen a few of her haiku from her "A Dictionary of Haiku" (the online version), the following series of haiku are all extracted from the summer section of "A Dictionary of Haiku":

coming to sea cliffs
the off-shore breeze raises
a flower fragrance

curving with the land

a rainbow of clouds

moves out to sea

sunrise finds
fog in the valleys
fingers in sand

whisper of rain

on a sunny day the surf

wets my feet

sweeping the porch
bright prints of raindrops
followed by splashes

cloudy sunrise

all the bird song colors

on rounded raindrops

darkening beach

the warmth of a person's eyes
for the sinking sun

scattered in sand

embers of a saltwood fire

face to face with stars

shell beach
wind blowing through
a train whistle

© Jane Reichhold

A wonderful series of haiku themed "summer" and I hope that through this last episode of this special Theme Week to honor Jane Reichhold she will be in your heart forever ... for sure she will be in my heart forever ... and she will be here always at Carpe Diem Haiku Kai to inspire us.

a whisper of rain awakens me gently morning on the beach © Chèvrefeuille

This episode is NOW OPEN for your submissions and will remain open until January 29th at noon (CET). Have fun !