Carpe Diem's The Sound of Silence #1 introduction

The Sound of Silence, a new CDHK feature

Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,

It has been a while that I introduced a new CDHK feature, but today that's going to change. Today I read a wonderful article in a renown mindfulness-magazine here in The Netherlands. That article was titled "Stil in mij" (or in English Inner Stillness) and it started with a quote from renown Persian poet Rumi (1207-1273). Maybe you can remember him from our Persian poetry month back in 2017, or you just now him as the poet he is. That quote, I will share hereafter, "triggered" my inspiration and it brought me this idea to create a new CDHK feature. Let me give you first the quote by Rumi:

[...] "Silence is the language of God, all else is poor translation". [...] (Rumi)

How to bring "silence within", "inner stillness" or "silence" into your haiku? That was the first thought that came in mind, but than I had a "revalation" ... Haiku is renown as the poetry of nature and in nature I find my inner peace, my inner silence. As I walk through nature than the beauty, the wonder, the greatness overwhelms me, nature makes me silent. I only listen to all the silence in nature, the song of birds, the rustling of leaves, a babbling brook, the cooing of pigeons and more ...
So haiku is not only the poetry of nature, but also the poetry of silence ... isn't that wonderful ... it's of course so true ... in our haiku we catch the silence not only through the scene, but also through the use of almost no words ... but those words are enough to paint a wonderful image.

We need that silence to create our haiku (or tanka) and that brings me to the goal of this new feature. Create a haiku (or tanka) in which you bring together silence and nature and try to include a spiritual layer, because silence and nature are connected in a spiritual way, they belong together. So let us try to bring one of the classical rules "a deeper meaning" back into our Japanese poetry especially haiku (or tanka).

Alone on the beach

alone on the beach
only the cries of seaguls -
breathing silence

© Chèvrefeuille

Well ... I hope you will enjoy this new feature.

This episode is NOW OPEN for your submissions and will remain open until January 16th 10:00 PM (CET).

PS. Don't forget our Troiku kukai (see the link at the left side of our Kai)