Carpe Diem #1510 Adventure ... the celebration starts

Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,

Welcome at the first (regular) episode of our wonderful Kai. This month we celebrate our 6th anniversary and I hope to makes this month festive and a real joy. Invite your friends to visit and participate us and share the beauty and love of our Carpe Diem Haiku Kai Family, because that's what we are a warmhearted family of haiku poets. Of course we don't create only haiku but all kinds of Japanese poetry forms.

As I told you in an earlier post I haven't invited celebs from the poetry world, because I hadn't enough time to search for them and invite them. So this month I hope to celebrate our 6th anniversary with only my own ideas and thoughts. This month I will try to give you an episode every day following the alphabet. Today we start with the letter A. Our theme for this day is "adventure" and an adventure it was as I started CDHK back in October 2012.

CDHK's first ever logo

Back in February 2012 I participated in a daily haiku meme and I enjoyed that very much. To read a few of my submissions for that daily haiku meme please visit my personal weblog Chèvrefeuille's Haiku Blog.
In that same year I also participated in a daily haiku challenge organized by Haiku Heights in April. It was really a joy to work with haiku on an every day base. Because of that great feeling I started Carpe Diem Haiku Kai (than only titled Carpe Diem) to give other poets the chance to create haiku, tanka and other Japanese poetry forms on a daily base.

Back in 2012 I couldn't have dreamed that CDHK would be still alive and kicking 6 years later, but here we are ... celebrating our 6th anniversary. In the years of our excistence we have read a lot of haiku, tanka and other Japanese poetry forms by classical and non-classical poets, but I also challenged you with a diversity of special features.
CDHK had grown and now we have several other weblogs at e.g. Blogger and Wordpress and don't forget that we have our own exclusive series of CDHK E-books as you can find in our Library. What a joy it is to celebrate our 6th anniversary with you all. Thank you all for being part of this wonderful and challenging adventure ...

Well ... let's start the celebrations of our 6th anniversary ... Today our theme is "adventure" and I have searched the Internet for haiku on this theme. Here is an example:

Pond waters ripple
A gentle summer breeze blows
Adventure awaits 

© Theresa Quinn

Or this one by Laurie Woodward:

What adventure comes
Beneath the moon, I wonder
As it shines above

Two wonderful haiku I found on the Internet and maybe you know this one by Matsuo Basho, maybe not as clear as the other two examples, but I think in this haiku by Basho you can read and feel the adventure.

Spring:
A hill without a name
Veiled in morning mist.

© Basho

As you all know I see Basho as my sensei, so he had to be mentioned in this first episode of our 6th anniversary month.

Adventure?

Here is an adventurous haiku from my archives:

like a chain of iron
the Wisteria climbs against the wall
reaching for the sky

© Chèvrefeuille

Isn't that an adventure? Climbing against the wall reaching for the sky ... awesome!

This episode is NOW OPEN for your submissions and will remain open until Ocetober 7th at noon (CEST). I will try to publish our new episode later on. For now ... have fun! Be part of our celebration.

Revisit our first episode: October 1st 2012

Carpe Diem Weekend Meditation #52 Tagore's "Last Curtain"

!! Open for your submissions next Sunday September 30th at 7:00 PM (CEST) !!

Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,

Welcome at our last weekend meditation of September 2018. I have another beautiful poem by Rabindranath Tagore to challenge you. As all the weekend meditations were this month. You have to "distil" a haiku (or tanka) from the given "long poem" by Tagore.

The poem by Tagore is titled "Last Curtain" and I think it don't need further explanation. To make your weekend meditation challenge a bit more difficult I love to challenge you to create a Troiku with the haiku you have distilled from this "long poem" or the haiku you created inspired on this poem. (more about Troiku you can find above in the menu).

Rabindranath Tagore

Here is the "long poem" by Tagore:

Last Curtain

I know that the day will come 
when my sight of this earth shall be lost, 
and life will take its leave in silence, 
drawing the last curtain over my eyes. 

Yet stars will watch at night, 
and morning rise as before, 
and hours heave like sea waves casting up pleasures and pains. 

When I think of this end of my moments, 
the barrier of the moments breaks 
and I see by the light of death 
thy world with its careless treasures. 
Rare is its lowliest seat, 
rare is its meanest of lives. 

Things that I longed for in vain 
and things that I got 
---let them pass. 
Let me but truly possess 
the things that I ever spurned 
and overlooked.

© Rabindranath Tagore

This weekend meditation is open for your submissions next Sunday September 30th at 7:00 PM (CEST) and will remain open until October 7th at noon (CEST). Have an awesome weekend!

Carpe Diem Extra September 28th 2018, pre-announcement October 2018

credits

Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,

It's almost October and that means ... time to celebate as we do every year in October, the month in which I started CDHK back in 2012. This year we will celebrate our 6th anniversary and I hope it will be a wonderful month full of celbrations. However this year I hadn't enough time to invite celebs from the poetry and musical world to join in our celebrations. So our upcoming anniversary I will try to create all episodes to celebrate our 6th anniversary.

So I cannot tell you what we are going to do, but of course I have already created a new logo for our celebration month. That logo I have published already at the right side of our Kai, but I will give it here again.

As you can see this logo shows you Mount Fuji, the Holy Mountain of Japan, surrounded by the beautiful colored leaves of the Japanese Maple. Of course no need to tell you why I have chosen this logo for our 6th anniversary, but I will tell you why this choice ...

Mount Fuji is the Holy Mountain of Japan and it's celebrated in many haiku and tanka for example this one by Basho:

Mount Fuji
like the tea-grinding mill
carried by the lice . . .

© Basho (age 33)

Mount Fuji in autumn

Or this one written by Yozakura, the Unknown haiku poet and apprentice of Basho:

through cherry blossoms
at the end of the day -
snow on Mount Fuji

© Yozakura

And that's not all what I can tell about my choice. The Japanese Maple is one of the most beautiful trees and if its leaves are coloring than the Japanese know that it's really autumn. Maybe you are familiair with the thought that autumn is the most beautiful season to write haiku (and tanka) about, not only for its colors, or feeling of departing, but also because the moon is on her brightest in autumn according to the Japanese.

So this logo points in many facets towards haiku, the first idea fromwhich CDHK evolved to what it has become now ... a warmhearted family of poets that love the beauty of Japanese poetry.

Next month we will celebrate our sixth anniversary and I hope you all will be part of it.

Hope to see you all next month as we will celebrate our 6th anniversary. Come on ... be part of it. Invite your friends to participate in this celebration.

Namasté,

Chèvrefeuille, your host.

Carpe Diem Tan Renga Challenge September 2018 Chained Together III (21) lend me your arms

Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,

Welcome at the last regular episode in our Tan Renga Challenge Month. I ran through my archives to find a nice haiku to end this month with, but couldn't find the right one. So I have done some research to find haiku from the western world and I ran into a haiku by a fellow dutchman, Hendrik Doeff (1764-1837) who was the Dutch commissioner in the Dejima trading post in Nagasaki, during the first years of the 19th century. (source: wikipedia)

The haiku to close this TRC month with is the earliest known haiku written by a non-Japanese haiku poet and Hendrik Doeff has written that haiku. This makes me proud, because a fellow dutchman has written that haiku ... how awesome that is ...

Hendrik Doeff

Here is the haiku to work with and turn into a Tan Renga by adding your second (two-lined) stanza of approximately 14 syllabes:

inazuma no kaina wo karan kusamakura 

lend me your arms,
fast as thunderbolts,
for a pillow on my journey.

© Hendrik Doeff

I hope you will be inspired to add your stanza to this haiku to make the Tan Renga complete. Have fun!

This episode is NOW OPEN for your submissions and will remain open until October 4th at noon (CEST). I will try to publish our last weekend meditation of this month later on. For now ... have fun!

Carpe Diem Extra September 26th 2018 Pre-Announcement of CDHK's Autumn Retreat 2018

Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,

Autumn has started so it's almost time for our seasonly Retreat, a period of 30 days to write haiku or tanka every day on a specific theme. This tradition is really awesome and it needs "focusing" because all the haiku and tanka created during the Retreat have somewhat to do with the theme given.

For this Autumn Retreat 2018 I have chosen the theme "Love Eternally" and I think it speaks for it self. As you all (maybe) know Tanka is known as the "love poem", but I think (and I have said that often here at CDHK) that Haiku can be a love poem too. So for this Autumn Retreat 2018 I challenge you to create haiku (and tanka) on love eternally.

Our Autumn Retreat 2018 starts on October 15th at 10:00 PM (CEST) and will close on November 15th 10:00 PM (CET). So are you with me again this seasonly Carpe Diem Autumn Retreat? 

Namasté,

Chèvrefeuille, your host

Carpe Diem Tan Renga Challenge September 2018 Chained Together III (20) in an empty shoe

Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,

Welcome at the penultimate regular episode of our wonderful Kai. This month I challenged you to create Tan Renga with "hokku" and "ageku" given by me and you all did a great job on these challenges. You all make me so proud and love to thank you all for that.

Arigato (Thank You)

For this penultimate regular episode I have chosen a haiku by Virginia Popescu and I hope she will appreciate my choice.

This "hokku" Virginia wrote in response on one of our "masterpiece"- episodes:

rest on the field –
a lonely cricket chirping
in an empty shoe

© Virginia Popescu

Isn't it a wonderful masterpiece? I hope it will give you the inspiration to complete the task ... making the Tan Renga complete by adding your second stanza of two lines with approximately 14 syllables.

This TCR episode is NOW OPEN for your submissions and will remain open until October 3rd at noon (CEST). I will try to publish our new (and last regular) episode of September later on.

Carpe Diem Tan Renga Challenge September 2018 Chained Together III (19) broken sunflower

Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,

Welcome at a new episode in our TRC month Chained Together III. Today I have chosen a not so well known haiku written by myself to work with. During lack of time, I am very busy at work, I will not create a long episode. So here is the haiku to work with:

broken sunflower
torn apart by a rainstorm --
puddles on the path

© Chèvrefeuille, your host

Sunflower Reflections

Well ... it's up to you now ... create a wonderful Tan Renga with the above haiku by adding your 2nd stanza to it. Enjoy ... the task.

This episode is NOW OPEN for your submissions and will remain open until October 2nd at noon (CEST). Have fun ...!

Renga With Basho #9 A Mark On The Wall

Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,

It is time again for a new episode of our special feature "Renga With Basho", our special feature in which you have the opportunity to create a renga together with the master, Matsuo Basho, one of the most famous and renown haiku poets on earth. I think that a lot of people will know his famous "frog pond" haiku, but he has written a lot of other wonderful haiku in his lifetime. Renga With Basho gives you haiku he has written and which are not renown by a greater public. So this is an opportunity to become familiair with other haiku of Basho.

The goal is to create a renga with the given haiku, the line-up your own choice, through adding your second stanzas of two lines wit approximately 14 syllables. I have made another nice choice (I think) of haiku by Basho taken from Jane Reichhold's "Basho, The Complete Haiku".

Here are the six (6) haiku to use in your own line up, of course I hope you will create a beautiful "closed chain of stanzas" by adding your stanzas and a wonderful last verse or closing verse the "ageku".

path of the sun
the hollyhock leans into
early summer rain

don't be like me
even though we're like the melon
split in two

wait awhile
cut the soy beans to the sound
of monks beating bowls

White Egret (image found on Pinterest; photo © Norman Johnson)

building a bridge
between snow-covered mountains
white egrets

plovers fly away
the evening grows later with
cold mountain winds

summer rain
where the poem card peeled off
a mark on the wall

© Matsuo Basho (Tr. Jane Reichhold, taken from: Basho, the complete haiku)

A wonderful selection I would say, but if it's a selection to create a renga with I don't know, but maybe you can do it in a great way.

This episode of "Renga With Basho" is NOW OPEN for your submissions and will remain open until October 1st at noon (CEST). Enjoy this "work-out" ... (smiles).

Carpe Diem Tan Renga Challenge September 2018 Chained Together III (18) Grass On River Bank (Ken Gierke)

Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,

September 2018, our Tan Renga Challenge Month, is running towards its end and we have only four (4) regular posts to go. I have tried to give you an every day challenge with haiku by classical and non-classical haiku poets and by challenging you a little bit more through the Hineri episodes, as we had yesterday.

Today I have a wonderful haiku by Ken Gierke of RivrVlogr. He wrote this one in response on our first episode of "quest for a (new) masterpiece" back in May 2018. Ken is one of the haiku poets who visits CDHK very often and I am glad he does, because his Troiku are really awesome. Yes Ken is an awesome haiku poet. Thank you Ken that you are a participant of CDHK and I hope you appreciate my choice of your haiku here to create a Tan Renga with.

Credits

Here is the haiku by Ken to work with:

grass on river bank
bending over in warm breeze
pale moon looking down

© Ken Gierke (RivrVlogr)

Well ... a beautiful haiku I would say ... a really nice one to work with.

This episode is NOW OPEN for your submissions and will remain open until October 1st at noon (CEST). I will try to publish our new episode later on. For now ... have fun!

Carpe Diem Tan Renga Challenge September 2018 Chained Together III (17) Without Blossom

Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,

I hope you all have had a wonderful weekend and that this weekend was a source of inspiration for you all of course. I have had a nice easy going weekend at home. The weather wasn't great so the most hours of this weekend I was inside my home. That gave me time to contemplate about new features here at CDHK and about our 6th anniversary next month. One of the new features I have already created is "Basho's School At Carpe Diem Haiku Kai". In this new feature we will explore the principals, rules, ideas and so on of Basho's School of Haiku. I hope to publish the first episode of this new feature later on this week.

credits

Okay ... back to today's episode of our TRC month Chained Together III. For this episode I have another Hineri task for you all, so that means this TRC episode you have to create the first stanza of three lines instead of the second stanza of two lines. This time I have chosen a quote by Khalil Gibran that I have re-done into the two lined stanza.

Life without love is like a tree
without blossoms or fruit.

© Khalil Gibran (Re-done into two lines by Chèvrefeuille)

A nice second stanza I would say and I hope it will inspire you to create the first (three-lined) stanza to make this Tan Renga complete.

This episode is NOW OPEN for your submissions and will remain open until September 30th at noon (CEST. I will try to publish our new episode later on. For now ... have fun!

Carpe Diem's Weekend Meditation #51 Tagore's "Endless Time"

!!! Open for your submissions next Sunday September 23rd at 7:00 PM (CEST) !!!

Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,

Time flies. September is running towards its end and we will enter the last quarter of 2018. Really time flies. Tomorrow is already yesterday as I create this new weekend meditation. I ran through Tagore's poetry and found a nice poem about time. It is titled "endless time" and that's the poem to work with this weekend.

But let us first make a quick trip back in time. Here at CDHK we have had earlier posts about time and time is changing ... I remember an episode about Khalil Gibran about time and maybe you can remember that episode in our Santiago De Compostela month. I will give you the links to those posts at the end of this weekend meditation.

Okay ... back to the poem by Tagore to work with this weekend. Try to catch the essence of this poem in a haiku or tanka, in other words try to distil your haiku or tanka from this poem or ... and that's okay too you can share a haiku or tanka inspired on this poem by Tagore.

Endless Time (© Dr. Feelgood)

Endless Time

Time is endless in thy hands, my lord. 
There is none to count thy minutes. 

Days and nights pass and ages bloom and fade like flowers. 
Thou knowest how to wait. 

Thy centuries follow each other perfecting a small wild flower. 

We have no time to lose, 
and having no time we must scramble for a chance. 
We are too poor to be late. 

And thus it is that time goes by 
while I give it to every querulous man who claims it, 
and thine altar is empty of all offerings to the last. 

At the end of the day I hasten in fear lest thy gate be shut; 
but I find that yet there is time. 

© Rabindranath Tagore

What a wonderful poem this is. It has a rich meaning I think. It describes the circle of life or the path of life so to say. We all are on our path of life making choices that will influence our life. Sometimes our choices are not good. For example: I once took the path of the occult and that brought me illness and suicidal thoughts, but praise ... I found my way back and took the right path again.
Time sometimes plays with us to learn us the secrets of a righteous life and that's (in my opinion) the deeper meaning of this poem by Tagore.

Here are the links to the mentioned episodes:

Episode 914
Episode 1124

And not so long ago (last summer) I challenged you to create a Troiku on Time that episode you can find HERE.

Well ... time ... it's an everlasting theme and I hoe that you can find the inspiration this weekend to meditate and contemplate about time and share your haiku or tanka "distilled" from the poem by Tagore with us all next Sunday September 23rd.

This weekend-meditation is open for your submissions next Sunday September 23rd at 7:00 PM (CEST) and will remain open until September 30th at noon (CEST). Have a great weekend!

Carpe Diem Tan Renga Challenge September 2018 Chained Together III (15) broken by the storm

Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,

Welcome at a new episode in our Tan Renga Challenge Month September 2018. Today I have another beautiful haiku written by the queen of haiku and tanka, Jane Reichhold. I have taken this haiku from the "autumn" section, subsection "plants", of her online version of "A Dictionary of Haiku", a modern saijiki.

As you all know Jane played an important role here at CDHK and she is still missed by us all I think. Her spirit will be always dwelling here at our Kai.

Symphyotrichum novae-angliae (New England aster) flower heads. Photo by Blanca Begert.

Here is the haiku (hokku) to work with:

broken by the storm
the asters' fragrance rises
out of damp earth

© Jane Reichhold

And now it is up to you to add your second stanza to make this Tan Renga complete and maybe you can try to honor Jane in your second stanza.

This episode is NOW OPEN for your submissions and will remain open until September 27th at noon (CEST). I will try to publish our new weekend meditation later on. For now ... have fun!

Carpe Diem Tan Renga Challenge September 2018 Chained Together III (14) sparkling wine

Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,

Welcome at a new episode of our Tan Renga Challenge month. During lack of time I have a short episode for you today. I will give you only the haiku ("hokku") to work with. This time I have chosen a haiku by the Unknown Haiku Poet Yozakura:

Sparkling wine
Flames dance in her hand
He is granted a smile

© Yozakura

sparkling wine

Now it's up to you ... add your second stanza and make this Tan Renga complete.

This episode is NOW OPEN for your submissions and will remain open until September 26th at noon (CEST). I will try to publish our next episode later on. For now .... be inspired and have fun!

Carpe Diem Tan Renga Challenge September 2018 Chained Together III (13) Withered Pampas Leaves

Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,

Welcome at a new episode of our Tan Renga Challenge Month 2018. Today I have a very special haiku for you. It was written by Takarai Kikaku, and apprentice of Matsuo Basho. Kikaku wrote an account about Basho's last days. Kikaku was also known as Shinshi and he wrote a tribute haiku for his master and placed it on his memorial stone at the Gichuji Temple in Awazu.

A hat to cover

The body of our master,

Withered pampas leaves.

© Shinshi (haigo of Takarai Kikaku)

Basho's Memorial Stone at the Gichuji Temple in Awazu

By the way you can find the above mentioned Account on the last days of Basho at Simply Haiku, an online haiku magazine. It's a real nice piece of prose (and haiku) written by Kikaku.

Add your 2nd stanza of two lines of approximately 14 syllables and make the Tan Renga complete.

This episode is NOW OPEN for your submissions and will remain open until September 25th at noon (CEST). I will try to publish our new episode later on. For now ... have fun!

Carpe Diem Tan Renga Challenge September 2018 Chained Together III (12) clouds and waves

Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,

Welcome at a new episode of our wonderful Kai. And what a wonderful month this already is through all your wonderful completions / continuations of the Tan Renga this month. I have another beauty for you. This time I hope you will complete this Tan Renga starting with a nice haiku by Dolores of Ada's Poetry Alcove inspired on a poem by Rabindranath Tagore that we had in one of our recent  weekend meditations.

anchor (image found on pixabay)

Here is the haiku ("hokku") to work with and complete into a Tan Renga by adding your 2nd two-lined stanza:

clouds and waves
carry my dreams away
tugging my anchor

© Dolores

I have given it a try (of course), so here is my Tan Renga:

after a restless night I awake
in the arms of my muse

© Chèvrefeuille

Not as strong as I had hoped, but I like the twist in this 2nd stanza. And now it's up to you. Have fun!

This episode is NOW OPEN for your submissions and will remain open until 24th at noon (CEST). I hope to publish our new episode later on.

Carpe Diem Tan Renga Challenge September 2018 Chained Together III (11) the dim glow of a campfire

Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,

After an easy going weekend I have a new TRC for you. Today I have chosen another episode of our Hineri feature. So today I will give you the 2nd stanza of approximately 14 syllables spread over two lines. This time I don't have chosen a quote by a haiku poet, but by a young Japanese novelist.

First I will give you the quote to work with and than some background on this young Japanese novelist and I will end this episode with the two lined stanza I created inspired on the quote.

[...] "He felt so lost, he said later, that the familiar studio felt like a haunted valley deep in the mountains, with the smell of rotting leaves, the spray of a waterfall, the sour fumes of fruit stashed away by a monkey; even the dim glow of the master's oil lamp on its tripod looked to him like misty moonlight in the hills."[...]

© Akutagawa Ryūnosuke

Akutagawa Ryunosuke (1892-1927)

Akutagawa Ryūnosuke, pseudonym Chōkōdō Shujin or Gaki, (born March 1, 1892, Tokyo, Japan—died July 24, 1927, Tokyo), prolific Japanese writer known especially for his stories based on events in the Japanese past and for his stylistic virtuosity.
As a boy Akutagawa was sickly and hypersensitive, but he excelled at school and was a voracious reader. He began his literary career while attending Tokyo Imperial University (now the University of Tokyo), where he studied English literature from 1913 to 1916.
The publication in 1915 of his short story “Rashōmon” led to his introduction to Natsume Sōseki, the outstanding Japanese novelist of the day. With Sōseki’s encouragement he began to write a series of stories derived largely from 12th- and 13th-century collections of Japanese tales but retold in the light of modern psychology and in a highly individual style. He ranged wide in his choice of material, drawing inspiration from such disparate sources as China, Japan’s 16th-century Christian community in Nagasaki, and European contacts with 19th-century Japan. Many of his stories have a feverish intensity that is well-suited to their often macabre themes.
In 1922 he turned toward autobiographical fiction, but Akutagawa’s stories of modern life lack the exotic and sometimes lurid glow of the older tales, perhaps accounting for their comparative unpopularity. His last important work, “Kappa” (1927), although a satiric fable about elflike creatures (kappa), is written in the mirthless vein of his last period and reflects his depressed state at the time. His suicide came as a shock to the literary world.
Akutagawa is one of the most widely translated of all Japanese writers, and a number of his stories have been made into films. The film classic Rashomon (1950), directed by Kurosawa Akira, is based on a combination of Akutagawa’s story by that title and another story of his, “Yabu no naka” (1921; “In a Grove”).

Rashomon (movie by Akira Kurosawa)

I wrote the two lined stanza to work with inspired on the above quote of Akutagawa Ryūnosuke (1892-1927)

Haunted valley deep in the mountains
The dim glow of a campfire

© Chèvrefeuille

I think this 2nd stanza will inspire you to create the first stanza of the Tan Renga. Have fun!

This episode is NOW OPEN for your submissions and will remain open until September 23rd at noon (CEST). I will try to publish our next episode later on today.

Carpe Diem's Brainteaser #1 Introduction and first challenge

Credits logo



Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,

I had some spare time so I thought "let me create an all new feature" and I did. I have created a new feature to challenge you. I have titled this new feature "Carpe Diem's Brainteaser" and I think you will understand the goal already, but let me introduce this feature to you.

Back in 1988 I discovered haiku. At first I thought this is not my “cup of tea” “to difficult”, I thought, because I love long poems and short stories and in my opinion I need a lot of words to say what I want to say. So at first I wasn’t caught by haiku, but after reading a wonderful book about haiku I tried it. I remember that like it was yesterday. I even can remember my first haiku ever:

Honeysuckle blooms

sharing her sweet perfume
I dream away

©️ Chèvrefeuille

Not a strong one I think, but it was the first ever. And because of that I took Chèvrefeuille as my haigo (pseudonym). Chèvrefeuille means Honeysuckle.

As I started writing haiku I struggled a lot with the form. Haiku isn’t easy to create, because of its very short form and its rules. So haiku isn’t easy … haiku can be a brainteaser.

In this new feature I love to explore other “special” haiku forms like “Pi-ku” and for example the “Acrostic haiku”.

For this first episode of “Carpe Diem’s Brainteaser” I love to challenge you to create an “acrostic” haiku. What does that mean “acrostic”? Well an “acrostic” haiku looks like this:

Sweet memories

Under the old apple tree

Newly weds

©️ Chèvrefeuille

Apple Tree (woodblock print by Imao Keinen)

You take a word (in the above example “sun”) and with the separated letters from that word you have to create a haiku. Here is another example, this time the word is “one”:

Only eyes for you

Naked she lays down on the beach

Everlasting love

©️ Chèvrefeuille

To make it a little bit more challenging I have another “brainteaser” for you.

Another acrostic form uses an Acrostichon and a Liaison. In this one the Acrostichon is AUTUMN and the liaison is TUTU. More about this form you can find HERE.

A rainy day

Under the umbrella

Tears of joy

U

T

United again

Music of the Swanlake

Newly weds

©️ Chèvrefeuille

Here is another example of the above kind of haiku, in this one the acrostichon is "POETRY" and the liaison "EAST". In this one I have brought two worlds together:

Perfect way
Of writing haiku
Eastern thoughts A
S
Tulip bulbs
Redder than red
Year by year

© Chèvrefeuille

Enjoy this new feature. I created it just for the fun, but it will not be easy.

This episode of "brainteaser" is NOW OPEN for your submissions and will remain open until September 22nd at noon (CEST). Have fun!

Carpe Diem Weekend Meditation #50 Rabindranath Tagore's "where shadow chases light"

!! Open for your submissions next Sunday September 16th at 7:00 PM (CEST) !!

Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,

For this weekend meditation I have chosen another wonderful poem by Tagore to work with, but this time I love to challenge you a little bit more.

At the start of this month I told you that every weekend meditation would be a "Carpe Diem Distillation" episode, in that special feature the goal is to create a haiku (this time only haiku) from a given so called "long poem". This weekend I have "sympathy" as the poem to work with, also a beautiful poem by Tagore.

There is one difference with the other two weekend meditations we have had this month. This time you have to create a Troiku with your distilled haiku. More about Troiku you can find above in the menu. It's a creative way of haiku-ing invented by your host.

Surreal Landscape With Giant Buddha (image found on Shutterstock)

And now to our new poem by Tagore,


This is my delight,

thus to wait and watch at the wayside

where shadow chases light

and the rain comes in the wake of the summer.

Messengers, with tidings from unknown skies,

greet me and speed along the road.

My heart is glad within,

and the breath of the passing breeze is sweet.

From dawn till dusk I sit here before my door,

and I know that of a sudden

the happy moment will arrive when I shall see.

In the meanwhile I smile and I sing all alone.

In the meanwhile the air is filling with the perfume of promise.

©️ Rabindranath Tagore

Well ... try to create a haiku (only haiku this time) from this poem by Tagore and than create a Troiku with your "distilled" haiku.

This weekend meditation is open for your submissions next Sunday September 16th at 7:00 PM (CEST) and will remain open until September 23rd at noon (CEST). Have a great weekend!