Carpe Diem #1521 Lao Tzu ... flexibility of water

Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,

Time slips through our fingers like grains of sand or in other words ... our festive 6th anniverasry is almost halfway and we have already had nice challenging prompts / themes to work with. And this month will be a little bit more beautiful I would say, because tomorrow, at 10:00 PM (CEST), our seasonly retreat starts. 30 Days of writing haiku or tanka inspired on a theme. This year's autumn retreat that theme is "Love Eternally", but that's not our point for this episode.

This month we have all prompts / themes following the alphabet and today we have arrived  at the letter L and today I love to cahllenge you to create a haiku, tanka or other Japanese poetry form inspired on a quote by Lao Tzu, a Chinese philosopher. So today it's a "Use That Quote" episode. Here is the quote to use:

[...] "Nothing is softer or more flexible than water, yet nothing can resist it."[...] (Lao Tzu)

Brook in the woods

A wonderful quote to work with I think, not an easy one maybe, but I think you all can create wonderful poems with it. Of course I had to do an attempt myself:

timeless beauty -
the glint of polished pebbles
in the crystal brook

© Chèvrefeuille

Hm ... not bad (how immodest), but it's not a new one (july 2013) I took it from my archive(s). So it's not completely fair, so here is a real new one:

reflection
wrinkles in my face make me old
the brook still young

© Chèvrefeuille (2018)

This episode is open for your submissions tonight at 7:00 PM (CEST) and will remain open until October 21st at noon (CEST). I will try to publish our new episode later on. For now ... have fun!