Saturday, June 1, 2013

Carpe Diem #211, koromogae (changing or switching clothes)



Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,

Well ... yesterday was the 'kick-off' of our new Carpe Diem month, June, and I hope that this will be a wonderful month full of beautiful haiku on Summer. It will be a joy to host this daily haiku meme again for a whole new month.

As I was preparing the first episode of June, Mijikayo, I had a deja vu. I thought that I had written a post about the 'short night' in one of our other months of Carpe Diem. The haiku which I used for that first episode of this month, looked very familiar to me, but as I sought for it I couldn't find it immediately. I finally found a post on one of my other blogs, Basho Revisited ,which was about the 'short night'. I will reproduce that haiku hereafter.

at dawn
I wash my feet with dew
the longest day

Not completely the same, but it is about the 'short night' . I think you all have such thoughts too, a deja vu. Another example of a deja vu. Several years ago I wrote a new haiku myself. After a while, when I had read all Basho's haiku, I had another deja vu. There was a haiku written by Basho which brought that haiku which I wrote, as I stated a few lines earlier, back in my mind. It looked so familiar and it turned out to be a haiku by Basho. I had written a haiku completely the same as the one by Basho and I didn't know all of his work at that time. Another deja vu ...

I have to share that haiku here. Remember I wrote it as a new haiku, but it turned out to be a haiku by Basho (my role-model).

polished again
on the clear mirror
flowers of snow


Credits: Koromogae (Yasuyuki Suzuki)


OK ... enough about deja vu and back to our prompt for today. Today we share haiku on koromogae (switching or changing clothes), maybe you know this. It was a common use to change clothes from wadded to linen in ancient Japan and we see that also in our time. As I look to myself. At the end of Autumn I put away my summer clothes and change them for the Winter clothes. And of course when Spring has gone I change my clothes again from Winter to Summer. I think this is very familiar to you all.

cleaning out the closet
finally Summer is here
no more wadded stuff

I hope you enjoyed the read and that it inspires you all to compose and share new haiku. have fun. This prompt will stay on 'til June 3rd 11.59 AM (CET) and I will post our next episode, shincha (new tea), later on today around 10.00 PM (CET).







4 comments:

  1. Haha. "De ja ku" is very common I've experienced it many times too.

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  2. I fully agree.. love barefoot and summer walks... thank you so much

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  3. You are so in tune with haiku, it's no surprise you tap into writings of the masters. Awesome synchronicity!

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