Carpe Diem #1051 Calm

Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,

With this new episode of our tribute to Jane Reichhold month we are entering the next season, summer. Here in The Netherlands it feels like summer at the end of summer "running" towards autumn temperatures are rising again and they even expect that we will have a heat wave ... so summer of 2016 in The Netherlands is departing with a "blast".

Today I have chosen another nice modern kigo extracted from Jane Reichhold's "A Dictionary of Haiku", a complete saijiki in which Jane gathered modern kigo and gave examples of all those modern kigo by creating wonderful haiku. Today I hope to inspire you with calm through the following haiku by Jane:

a certain calm
in summer's passing
flowers

flat seas
with the butterfly's flight
a certain calm

the hour silent
before the birds awake
waves on sand

© Jane Reichhold

These haiku are wonderful and I can read Jane's fingerprints all over them. In a way Jane Reichhold created the "western" haiku without losing the respect for the Japanese haiku. She created beauty and shared it with the world. Without her the "western" haiku had died long ago, but that's my humble opinion.

waves on sand

As I read the above trio of haiku I felt Jane's presence and that inspired me to create the following haiku:

her gentle spirit
the calm of an early morning
a bird's song

© Chèvrefeuille

I love this haiku ... one of my best I would say (how immodest) ... Jane and I are connected in a very nice spiritual way and I hope to feel her presence forever.

This episode is NOW OPEN for your submissions and will remain open until September 16th at noon (CET). I hope to publish our next episode, happiness, later on. For now ... be inspired and share your haiku, tanka or other Japanese poetry form with us all.