Carpe Diem Ghost Writer May 5, Matsuo Basho

Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,

Today our last Ghost-Writer post of this month and the last Ghost-Writer post in this way. As you could have read in the CD-Extra #6 earlier today I will change the Ghost-Writer feature a little bit.

I have found another Ghost Writer for today, because our fifth Ghost-Writer has not emailed a Ghost Writer post ... maybe that Ghost-writer hadn't enough time to prepare a post or maybe there was another reason, but ... well ... there are no obligations for those who would do the Ghost-Writer posts this month. I hope that there will be a post later, which I can schedule for our next month of Carpe Diem Haiku Kai.

Our prompt for today, which would be "Yggdrasil", we had yesterday so today we will have "Creation" and our Ghost-Writer for today, Matsuo Basho, has used that prompt also. Here it is:

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Good day dear Haijin,

It's my pleasure to write the fifth Ghost-Writer post for this week and I feel honored that Chèvrefeuille has asked me to do that Ghost Writer post.
I think you all know me, but maybe it's still an idea to introduce myself.

I am one of the four greatest classical haiku-poets, next to Issa, Buson and Shiki, and it was me who created haiku as it is today. The only thing I have to admit is that I wasn't the one who gave haiku it's name. Shiki gave haiku it's name and all the verses, haikai or hokku, which I wrote became haiku later on in time.
As you all know I travelled a lot during my life and I think you all know The Small Road Into The Deep North or Oku-no-Hosomichi it's one of the haibun which I wrote. It was a tough journey into the deep north on my straw-sandals and with my bad health, but I enjoyed very minute of it.
This journey brought me back to my roots and brought me also Karumi or Enlightment. As I was on this journey together with my best friend Sora I learned to look in a different way to nature, to the Creation in which we may live. I learned to look better, in a new way, to the small things along my way and the ordinary things of life. I learned to see for example Buddha in the horse manure of a horse that pooped closely to my head. I noticed the flies on the manure and through that I learned that the small things are more important than the big things in nature, in our surroundings in the Creation.
So for this Ghost-Writer post I love to challenge you to look in a new way to nature, to your surroundings, to the Creation ... see the beauty in the small things, in the small flowers, insects, animals, birds and so on ...
I will give you a few examples of my haiku:

In the moonlight
a worm silently drills
through a chestnut

in blossoms
a horsefly plays… don’t eat it
friend-sparrow

petal by petal
yellow mountain roses fall —
sound of rapids

Eaten alive by
lice and fleas -- the horse pees
beside my pillow 

© Matsuo Basho

And now it is up to you dear Haijin. It was a honor to be your Ghost Writer for today.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Isn't it great? Basho ... writing a Ghost Writer post? I was honored and I have to write a haiku myself to honor him.

forget me nots
hiding against the feet of Buddha -
tears on my pillow

© Chèvrefeuille

By the way our prompt "Creation" was referring to all the different folktales, myths, legends and saga around the world about the Creation of our planet.

This episode is open for your submissions tonight at 7.00 PM (CET) and will remain open until May 11th noon. I will try to post our new episode, our second Special by Jack Kerouac, later on today. For now ... have fun, be inspired and share your haiku inspired on the Ghost Writer post by Basho with us all.