Carpe Diem #1268 shuntoo (spring lantern)

Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,

I still cannot belief that CDHK is still here after five wonderful years. We have done it! Without you my dear haijin CDHK couldn't excist and I am grateful for your participation. Several of you have been here since the early days of CDHK and that makes me happy.
We have seen a lot of places and we have explored unknown places, but we have also been inspired by classical and non-classical kigo (seasonwords) and today I love to do one of those kigo. This kigo was our prompt back in March 2013, it's a classical kigo for spring. Today we have "shuntoo" (spring lantern) to inspire you (again).

I love those wonderful Japanese garden lanterns, but spring lanterns aren't made of stone, as are the garden lanterns, but made of paper to be exactly, made from rice-paper. As I look at those paper lanterns they look somewhat like lampions.

Shuntoo (spring lantern, Edo period)

In our episode of March 2013 I shared a wonderful haiku by Issa, one of the five greatest haiku poets ever, which I love to share here again.

chôchin de tabako fuku nari haru no kaze

smoking a pipe
by lantern light...
spring breeze

© Kobayashi Issa

And one of the participants then shared a wonderful "chained" haiku series, or maybe I have to call it cascading haiku. John Belchamber is the name of that participant and he shared the following haiku:

flickering lantern
attracting moths from shadows
kimono slips off

kimono slips off
geisha knows her part by heart
shadow puppetry

shadow puppetry
silhouette of love’s embrace
goose down on futon

goose down on futon
tale of now and yen, beside
flickering lantern

© John Belchamber

Japanese lampions (shuntoo)

Look at those colors, must be an awesome sight to see them all burning in a moonlit night, or in a moonless night.

spring breeze
lampions move gracefully
moonless night

© Chèvrefeuille

You can find the original episode HERE

This episode is open for your submissions tonight at 7:00 PM (CET) and will remain open until October 11th at noon (CET). I will try to publish our new episode, reflection, later on. For now ... have fun!