Carpe Diem Extra February 29th 2020

Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,

I will not publish a weekend meditation this weekend. I need a weekend off, so i decided to not publish.

Have a great weekend!

Namasté,

Chèvrefeuille, your host.

Carpe Diem #1819 romance on the beach (haibun)

Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,

This is our last regular episode in this CDHK Love Month. For this last episode I have chosen a nice theme I think Romance On The Beach, and this time I love to challenge you to create a haibun (prose and poetry) with a maximum of 100 words (including the poems).





Video © Rodica Madan

This episode is NOW OPEN for your submissions and will remain open until March 5th at noon (CET). Have fun!

Carpe Diem #1818 ... the color of love

Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,

Welcome at a belated episode of our wonderful Kai. So I will give you only the prompt for today.
Today I have chosen The Color Of Love for you to work with.

too old for new love
the moon rises each night
as I remember
the backseats of strange cars
it's helpful light afterwards

© Jane Reichhold

A beautiful tanka in which we find the beauty of the rising moon, but also the beauty of discovering sexuality as teenagers. Maybe you can remember having the first kiss in a car, or the first time having sex on the backseat of a car. In this tanka you can find that strong romantic atmosphere.

This episode is NOW OPEN for your submissions and will remain open until March 4th at noon (CET). Have fun!

Carpe Diem Tan Renga Wednesday (hineri) #15 Cherry Tree in Full Bloom

Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,

Welcome at a new episode of our special feature "Carpe Diem's Tan Renga Wednesday", that nice feature in which I challenge you to complete a Tan Renga from a given haiku. This week I have chosen for a "hineri" episode or an episode of the Tan Renga Wednesday with a twist.

This week I will give you the second stanza, the two-lined one, of the Tan Renga. You have to create the first stanza, the three-lined (hokku), to complete the Tan Renga. For this episode I have created a whole new 2nd stanza to work with:

shadows become longer
cherry tree in full bloom grows

© Chèvrefeuille

Well ... enjoy this Tan Renga Wednesday !

Cherry Trees in Full Bloom (Japan)

This Tan Renga Wednesday is NOW OPEN for your submissions and will remain open until March 3rd at noon (CET). Have fun!

Carpe Diem #1817 Renga With ... Jane Reichhold ... Moonlight Moving

Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,

We are counting down to the end of this wonderful month full of Love. Only four days left (regular episodes) and than we will start a new month full of exciting words and views ... next month we will do a reprise visit at Shikoku Island.

Today however we are still in the Love mood and with love we know there comes ... desire ... Today I love to challenge you to create a Renga With Jane Reichhold, our beloved and so missed co-host of CDHK may she rest in peace.

The goal of this feature, Renga With ..., is to add your two-lined verses / stanza through association on the scenes in the given haiku ... together with Jane Reichhold you are creating in that way a so called "Junicho" (a 12-stanza renga).

Jane Reichhold (1937-2016)

Here are the six (6) haiku by Jane Reichhold, extracted from her online Saijiki "A Dictionary of Haiku", section Spring, sub-section Moods:

morning fog
dreams not buried
deep enough

spring sunshine
the strangeness of his perfectly
normal thumbnail

kids laughing
in the neighbor's house
the childless couple

moonlight moving
with the gate as the servant girl
takes an evening

Desire In The Moonlight

Saturday rain
desire by a warm stove
for an affair

waterfall
delicate forms
for a spirit

© Jane Reichhold

As always you can choose your own "line-up", but ... your Renga With ... has to start with the following haiku:

moonlight moving
with the gate as the servant girl
takes an evening

What an awesome series of haiku on desire to work with ... love cannot exist without desire ... Create your Renga With Jane Reichhold ... enjoy!

This episode is NOW OPEN for your submissions and will remain open until March 3rd at noon (CET). Have fun!

Carpe Diem #1816 kittens

Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,

Welcome at a new week of our wonderful Haiku Kai. February is running towards its end, so we have only a few days to go this week to conclude our wonderful Love Month. It was a wonderful month full of love in all its beauty.

Next month I hope to take you all on a trip to Shikoku Island, that wonderful island with its 88 temples, the Shikoku pilgrimage is for Buddhists what the pilgrimage to Mecca is for our muslim citizens. Shikoku Island is a pilgrimage you have to do once in a lifetime ... Several years ago we also walked this pilgrimage along the 88 temples, but I think it's a wonderful reprise worth. But that's for next month.

Shikoku Island (photo © Dorinser)

Okay ... back to our Love Month. In this wonderful Love Month we have seen several kinds of Love, but as far as I can recall, we hadn't a prompt about animal love. So today I love to challenge you to create a haiku, tanka or other Japanese poetry form about animal love, especially "kittens", but all other animals are okay too.

I found a nice haiku by Don Iannone ... he made it into a haiga:

Isn't it a beauty?

This episode is NOW OPEN for your submissions and will remain open until March 1st at noon (CET). Have fun!

Carpe Diem Weekend Meditation #117 the cold night

!! Open for your submissions next Sunday, February 23rd at 7:00 PM (CET) !!

Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,

Welcome at a new weekend meditation here at our wonderful Haiku Kai. I am a bit late with publishing, but I am in the nightshift. This weekend I will give you a nice "fusion-ku" challenge, or "crossroads". That nice special feature in which I ask you to create a "fusion-ku" from two given haiku. Your "fusion-ku" you have to use to create a Troiku (more about Troiku, you can find above in the menu).

Here are the two haiku to create your fusion-ku with and create your Troiku:

spring snow
purifies earth and heaven
our enemies perish

© Mizuhara Shûôshi

the cold night
comes out of the stones
all morning

© Jim Kacian

stones

Two beautiful haiku, with two very different scenes ... both haiku-poets are modern time poets and they are both well known also.

Your task ... create a "fusion-ku" from the two haiku given and create with your "fusion-ku" a Troiku, that nice modern way of creating haiku, based on the Russian sleigh "troika".

Have a wonderful weekend. This weekend meditation is open for your submissions next Sunday February 23rd at 7:00 PM (CET) and will remain open until March 1st at noon (CET).

Carpe Diem #1815 Haiku ... the first love

Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,

Welcome at this new episode (somewhat belated) of our wonderful Haiku Kai were we are exploring Love this month. Can haiku be a love poem? I think it can, but I also can say it in a different way ... Haiku, the first love ...

That is so true ... haiku really was my first love ... Back in the late eighties I discovered haiku and I was immediately sold to the beauty of this wonderful small Japanese verse ... Well you all know what happened the years after that discovery. It resulted in 2012 in the start of Carpe Diem Haiku Kai (CDHK).

CDHK has grown and has become a family of haiku loving poets. During the years I introduced other forms of Japanese poetry and now ... more than 7 years later we are still alive and kicking.

out of earth
the flower shape
of a hole

© Jane Reichhold 

By actually seeing that the hole dug for the seed already has the shape of a flower, one has a new awareness of dirt and flowers and their relationship. (extracted from: Writing and Enjoying Haiku)

Jane Reichhold was a renown haiku poetess all around the globe and she was our co-host for some time. I still miss her. She brought us her knowledge about haiku and through her my love for haiku became stronger and stronger ... Haiku really my first love.

three lines
enchanted by nature
Cupids arrow

© Chèvrefeuille

Not a strong one maybe, but this little verse, this haiku / senryu, gives words to my feeling that Haiku was (and still is) my first love.

This episode is NOW OPEN for your submissions and will remain open until February 27th at noon (CET). Have fun!

Carpe Diem #1814 lost love

Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,

Welcome at a new episode of our wonderful Haiku Kai. This month it's all about Love in all its wonderful forms. Today however I have chosen for a prompt that's not that wonderful ... or maybe even a "lost love" can be wonderful.

Our prompt for today is "Lost Love".

Lost Love

rainy day
tears become one with puddles
new moon

© Chèvrefeuille

This episode is NOW OPEN for your submissions and will remain open until February 26th at noon (CET). Have fun!

Carpe Diem Tan Renga Wednesday #14 Wisteria Beans

Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,

Welcome at a new episode of our special feature Tan Renga Wednesday, that wonderful feature in which I challenge you to complete a Tan Renga by adding your two-lined stanza to a given haiku.

During lack of time I will give you only the haiku to work with. This week I have chosen a haiku by Basho:

wisteria beans
let's make that a theme for haikai
a flower fruit 

© Basho (Tr. Jane Reichhold)

Well ... a nice one I think to work with.

This episode is NOW OPEN for your submissions and will remain open until February 25th at noon (CET). Have fun!

Carpe Diem #1813 Love At First Sight

Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,

First my apologies for being late with publishing our new regular episode. I hadn't time enough to create it. Because of that I will just give you the theme for today (Tuesday February 18th). As you all know this month our theme is ... Love ... so for today I have chosen that wonderful and exciting experience ... Love At First Sight. I know what I am talking about, because my wife and I fell in love at first sight ...

one heartbeat
her wonderful smile
a blanket of love

© Chèvrefeuille

This episode is NOW OPEN for your submissions and will remain open until February 24th at noon (CET). Have fun!

Carpe Diem #1812 The Day After Valentine's Day ...

Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,

Welcome at a new episode of our wonderful Love Month here at CDHK. Last Friday it was Valentine's Day and today I have chosen a nice theme ... The Day After Valentine's Day ... Ofcourse that was last Saturday, February 15th, but as you all know we have our weekend meditation nowadays in the weekends.

This haiku is about Valentine's day or more the day after. As you maybe know Saint Valentine's Day is on February 14th and is a holiday in almost the whole world, also in Russia. Here is a special haiku by Alexey Andreyev for your inspiration to write an all new haiku in the same sense, tone and Spirit as the one given.

Russian Icon of St. Valentine

To stay in touch with our Love theme I have used the above Icon.

РПУМЕ чБМЕОФЙОПЧБ ДОС -
ЛТБУОЩЕ МЕРЕУФЛЙ ОБ РПМХ, Й
НЕФМБ Ч ХЗМХ
                      
day after Valentine's -
red petals on the floor, and
a broom in the corner

© Alexey Andreyev

A wonderful haiku I think. As I read this haiku I thought "what happened here?" Did the young lovers have a quarrel? Or is the scene more metaphorical? Tells this haiku that the love is over after a long time? Why didn't they sweep the floor? All that kind of questions came in my mind. And with those thoughts I wrote my own haiku inspired on the one by Alexey. I even have tried to write this haiku in the classical way.

petals of roses
scattered through the living room
a ring on the table

© Chèvrefeuille

petals of roses

A sad haiku ... but that sadness is also part of haiku. Haiku is a great medium to share your emotions caught is a few lines. This also is part of Love ... breaking up.

This episode is NOW OPEN for your submissions and will remain open until February 23rd at noon (CET). Have fun!

Carpe Diem Weekend Meditation #116 Renga With ... waiting for the full moon

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

Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,

Welcome at a new Weekend Meditation episode. This weekend I love to challenge you to create a Renga With ... That beautiful feature in which you have the opportunity to create haiku with known and unknown haiku masters.

This weekend I love to challenge you to create a renga with the so called "big five" (Basho, Issa, Buson, Chiyo-Ni and Shiki). And, how immodest, one of my own haiku.

Here are the six haiku to work with:

the autumn wind:
thickets and fields also,
Fuha Barrier

© Basho

a dandelion

now and then interrupting

the butterfly's dream

© Chiyo-Ni

the thunderstorm having cleared up

the evening sun shines on a tree

where a cicada is chirping 

© Shiki

simply trust:

do not also the petals flutter down,

just like that?

© Issa

in nooks and corners

cold remains:

flowers of the plum

© Buson

ancient warriors ghosts

mists over the foreign highlands -

waiting for the full moon

© Chèvrefeuille

Six nice haiku I think. Now it's up to you to create a renga with them by adding your two-lined stanza of approx. 7-7 syllables. You can choose your own "line-up". Enjoy this Renga challenge and have a wonderful weekend.

This weekend meditation is open for your submissions next Sunday, February 16th at 7:00 PM (CET) and will remain open until February 23rd at noon (CET). Enjoy!

Carpe Diem #1811 Valentine's Day ...

Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,

Valentine's day, a day to send cards to secret lovers or give gifts to the one you love. But ... who was Valentine? I did some research on Valentine.

Saint Valentine's Day, commonly shortened to Valentine's Day, is a holiday observed on February
14 honoring one or more early Christian martyrs named Saint Valentine. It was first established by Pope Gelasius I in 496 AD, and was later deleted from the General Roman Calendar of saints in 1969 by Pope Paul VI.
The day first became associated with romantic love in the circle of Geoffrey Chaucer in the High Middle Ages, when the tradition of courtly love flourished. By the 15th century, it had evolved into an occasion in which lovers expressed their love for each other by presenting flowers, offering confectionery, and sending greeting cards (known as "valentines").

Saint Valentine (in Latin, Valentinus) is the name of several (14 in all ) martyred saints of ancient Rome. The name "Valentine", derived from valens(worthy, strong, powerful), was popular in Late Antiquity. Of the Saint Valentine whose feast is on February 14, nothing is known except his name and that he was buried on the Via Flaminia north of Rome on February 14, he was born on April 16. It is even uncertain whether the feast of that day celebrates only one saint or more saints of the same name. For this reason this liturgical commemoration was not kept in the Catholic calendar of saints for universal liturgical veneration as revised in 1969. But "Martyr Valentinus the Presbyter and those with him at Rome" remains in the list of saints proposed for veneration by all Catholics

Well ... now I know a little bit more of Saint Valentine's Day. Now I can write a few new haiku for today's haiku challenge :-)

behind the clouds
the mysterious moon
'be my Valentine'

Valentine's Day
the postmen brings love cards
someone unknown

newly weds
eating oysters
under the plum tree

her lovely face
smiling at me in the mirror
'love you forever'

newly weds
under the blooming cherries
Ah! how lovely

© Chèvrefeuille

Well ... I hope you all will have a secret lover that sends you flowers or cards on Valentine's Day.

This episode is NOW OPEN for your submissions and will remain open until February 20th at noon (CET). Have fun!

Carpe Diem #1810 rainbow

Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,

Welcome at a new episode of our wonderful Kai. This month it's "Love Month" and that my friends means all our prompts have to do with love. Today I have chosen the prompt "rainbow" and as you all know the "rainbow-flag" is for all kinds of love, not only the love between man and woman, but also the love between two man, two women, transgenders and bisexuals. Isn't it a joy to see that in the most countries around the world you can be gay, lesbian, transgender or bisexual. Ofcourse there are countries were it isn't possible to have a relation with a man if you are a man, or two women in a love relation. That makes me sad.

Isn't it the most intense emotion we all know ... LOVE?

Awesome to see this flag wave against the blue sky ... colorful ... as is life, as is nature, as is love.

against the blue sky
Gods Love waves at us
shining rainbow

© Chèvrefeuille

This episode is NOW OPEN for your submissions and will remain open until February 19th at noon (CET). Have fun!

Carpe Diem Tan Renga Wednesday #13 Winter Chrysanthemum

Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,

Welcome at a new episode of our Tan Renga Wednesday, that nice special feature about Tan Renga. Your goal is to create a Tan Renga with a given haiku by adding your two-lined stanza through association.

Here is the haiku to work with:

Winter chrysanthemum,
Wearing nothing
but its own light

© Mizuhara Shūōshi (1892-1981)

Winter Chrysanthemum (Japanese Woodblock print by Kono Bairei)

This episode of our Tan Renga Wednesday is NOW OPEN for your submissions and will remain open until February 18th at noon (CET). Have fun!

Carpe Diem #1809 Wedding Bells

Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,

Welcome at a new episode of our wonderful Kai. Yesterday I challenged you to create an Acrostic Dodoitsu, a nice Japanese poetry form, but also a short poem. So today I love to challenge you with a Long Japanese Poetry form, the Choka. Let me tell you a little bit more about the Choka.

The choka can be of almost any length, because its form depends on alternating phrases (or lines) containing either seven of five sound units (onji). The end of the poem is signaled by two lines of seven sounds. So the form is five/seven, five/seven, five seven, .... , seven/seven.
This was the most popular form of poetry in the 9th century as indicated by the large number of works in the celebrated anthology Man'yoshu (The Collection of Ten Thousand Leaves). This anthology of anthologies contained 260 choka and 4200 tanka.

Page from The Man'yoshu

The poet Kakinomoto no Hitomaro, who composed most of his work in the last decade of the 7th century, took the choka to its highest lyrical point with his finesse in the use of ritual language.
The connection to tanka is evidenced by the envoy or hanka - a tanka-like poem attached at the end of the choka. Occasionally more than one envoy will close the choka. There have been a few efforts to revivie the form over the intervening centuries, but the form has failed to gain any popularity in Japan, and even less has been accomplished in English. (Based on Jane Reichhold's "Writing and Enjoying Haiku")

Here is an example of a choka from the Man'yoshu (no. 802):

The briefest chōka documented is Man'yōshū no. 802, which is of a pattern 5-7 5-7 5-7 5-7-7. It was composed in the Nara period and goes:

When I eat melons
My children come to my mind;
When I eat chestnuts
The longing is even worse.
Where do they come from,
Flickering before my eyes.
Making me helpless
Endlessly night after night.
Not letting me sleep in peace?

(envoy or hanka)

What are they to me,
Silver, or gold, or jewels?
How could they ever
Equal the greater treasure
That is a child? They cannot.

© Yamanoue no Okura (Tr. Edwin Cranston)

Choka ... a wonderful Japanese poetry form ... Today I love to challenge you to create a Choka in which Love is the main theme.

This episode is NOW OPEN for your submissions and will remain open until February 17th at noon (CET). Have fun!

Carpe Diem #1808 LOVE acrostic challenge

Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,

I hope you all have had a wonderful weekend. I had a busy weekend because I had to work. I am at work now, but have my coffee-break, so I have a little time to publish our new episode of our wonderful Haiku Kai.

This month our theme is LOVE and for today I have chosen a nice challenge for you. I love to challenge you to create a  so called "acrostic" dodoitsu. Let me first tell you what "acrostic" means:

An acrostic is a poem (or other form of writing) in which the first letter (or syllable, or word) of each line (or paragraph, or other recurring feature in the text) spells out a word, message or the alphabet.

An "acrostic" haiku example, acrostic: ONE:

Only eyes for you
Naked she lays down on the beach
Everlasting love

©️ Chèvrefeuille

sunny beach

But today I love to challenge you to create a Dodoitsu, that's a 4-line Japanese poetry form, let me tell you a little bit more about the Dodoitsu:

Dodoitsu is a form of Japanese poetry developed towards the end of the Edo Period. Often concerning love or work, and usually comical, Dodoitsu poems consist of four lines with the syllabic structure 7-7-7-5 and no rhyme or metre.

An example of a Dodoitsu:

One Night

one night I searched for a star
what I found was a full moon
now my every day is
full of shooting stars

© Ben Gieske (2012)

So the goal of this challenge is to create a Dodoitsu with the "acrostic" LOVE, the first characters of every line need to form that word.

This episode is NOW OPEN for your submissions and will remain open until February 16th at noon (CET). Have fun!

Carpe Diem Weekend Meditation #115 Transformation ... a sone for a pillow

!! Open for your submissions tomorrow, Sunday February 9th, 2020 at 7:00 PM (CET) !!

Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,

Welcome at a (belated) new CDHK Weekend Meditation. It wasn't possible to publish on time, through circumstances. This weekend I love to challenge you with a new Transformation episode, that wonderful special feature in which the goal is to re-create a given haiku into a tanka.
This weekend I have chosen for a haiku by a not so well known haiku poet, Kawabata Bosha (1897-1941).

Kawabata Bosha

Bosha is a not so well known haiku poet, a contemporary of Shiki and a devotee to Basho, as we already can see in his haigo, Bosha.

Let me tell you first something about this not so well known haiku poet. Kawabata Bosha (1897-1941) was born on August 17 in Downtown Tokyo.His family name is Kawabata Nobukazu. His father had a great influence on his haiku career. His grandfather and his mother worked in a hospital and as a child it was his wish to become a doctor himself.
His stepbrother was Kawabata Ryush (Ryuushi), who later became a famous painter of traditional Japanese Paintings (Nihonga). Bosha himself was also a great painter.

At age 17 he started to use the haigo Bosha. He later became a most beloved student of Takahama Kyoshi and worked with the Aogiri Group. But his lung tuberculosis became worse and he died at a young age in 1941. On the evening of July 16 he died, this was his Jisei (death-poem).

ishi makura shite ware semi ka naki shigure

a stone for a pillow
me, just another cicada ...
so shrill, like crying

© Kawabata Bosha

cicada

A beautiful Jisei (death-poem) I would say. As read this Jisei I immediately thought about a haiku written by my sensei Matsuo Basho. In a way the haiku by Bosha was I think inspired on a haiku by Basho.

That haiku was the following:

the deep stillness
seeping into the rocks
the voice of the cicadas

© Matsuo Basho

Did you know that the life-circle of a cicada is 17 years? Could it be that our 17 syllables counting haiku was inspired on the life circle of the cicada? As that is true than haiku is for sure the poetry of nature.

Well ... enough talking.

This weekend meditation is open for your submissions tomorrow Sunday February 9th at 7:00 PM (CET) and will remain open until February 16th at noon (CET). Have a wonderful weekend full of inspiration.

Carpe Diem #1807 Two Hearts Become One

Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,

Love is the ultimate emotion. I think we all agree on that. Love is positive energy and uplifts our hearts. The ultimate energy of love is ... "two hearts become one". We see that in our children for example, but there is another "thing" that can do that ... dancing ... especially the Tango.

So to inspire you I love to share a wonderful piece of music:

Isn't it wonderful?

dance of deep love
she, my lovely wife, sways
dancing the Tango
passionate couple of youngsters -
dance of deep love

© Chèvrefeuille


This episode is NOW OPEN for your submissions and will remain open until February 12th at noon (CET). Enjoy!

Carpe Diem Tan Renga Wednesday #12 a last leaf

Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,

My excuses for being this late with publishing our new Tan Renga Wednesday episode. This special feature is to challenge you to create a Tan Renga from a given haiku by adding the two-lined stanza.

For this Tan Renga Wednesday I have ran trhough the archives of CDHK and found a haiku I created for the Autumn Retreat 2017, Departure, I think it's a nice haiku and I think it can become a marvelous Tan Renga.

A Last Leaf

a last leaf
swirls on the wind towards the east -
first snow falls gently

© Chèvrefeuille

This Tan Renga Wednesday is NOW OPEN for your submissions and will remain open until February 11th at noon (CET). Enjoy the challenge.

Carpe Diem #1806 Unconditional Love

Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,

Welcome at a new episode of our Haiku Kai. This month I love to challenge you to create haiku, tanka or other Japanese poetry forms themed LOVE. Today I love to challenge you to create Japanese poetry themed "Unconditional Love".

Unconditional Love

Unconditional Love ... is the love without limitations, everyone can give Unconditional Love.

in the garden
first cherry blossoms bloom
cherised by the sun

© Chèvrefeuille

This episode is NOW OPEN for your submissions and will remain open until February 10th at noon (CET).

Carpe Diem #1805 Introducing our new Theme ... Love month

credits logo

Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,

Welcome at a new episode of our wonderful Haiku Kai. We are here to create and share Japanese poetry and this month our theme is Love. This month we celebrate Love in all its beauty. I have chosen this theme because of the fact that we celebrate Valentine's Day on February 14th, but also because I love to explore Love as a theme for haiku.

Love ... we all can relate to it I think, it's not only the love between people, but also between plants, flowers, insects, animals and the love for something. I love my wife and kids, but I also fell in love with haiku back in 1988.

As you all know haiku is about nature, deeper meaning and so on. Tanka once was the poetry of love between people, it was used as a kind of secret love-letter, and is therefore known as a love poem. Haiku ... is mostly not seen as a love poem, but this month I hope to explore it ... together with you all. Are you with me?

Love is a challenge (photo © Sachar Gilad)

Love is one of the most important emotions I think, and Unconditional Love is what we need here on our planet, because unconditional love has no boundaries and will always reach out to other people around you and around the world.

without boundaries
I open my heart to spread love
on wings of birds

© Chèvrefeuille

With love we can reach out towards people around us. Love is really the only way to spread peace all over the globe.

Spread love,

Chèvrefeuille

This episode is NOW OPEN for your submissions and will remain open until February 9th at noon (CET)

Carpe Diem Weekend Meditation #114 Renga With ... beach diamonds

!! Open for your submissions next Sunday February 2nd at 7:00 PM (CET) !!

Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,

Welcome at a new weekend meditation here at Carpe Diem Haiku Kai, that nice special feature for the weekend. I think you all have noticed that I didn't publish on last Thursday and Friday, my excuses for that, I had a very busy (and tough) week, so I hadn't time to publish on those days.

This weekend I love to challenge you to create a Renga with several haiku poets. Your task is to add the two-lined stanza towards it. You can choose your own "line-up", but have to start with the haiku I will give first. So this Renga With ... is a kind of Hineri, with a twist.

Here are the six haiku to use, the first given haiku has to be your hokku (starting verse) and is a beauty created by Jane Reichhold (1937-2016).

beach diamonds
a new day crystallized
in sunny surf foam

© Jane Reichhold

cold spring breeze
makes the cherry blossom shiver
one heartbeat long

© Chèvrefeuille

The wind from Mt. Fuji
I put it on the fan.
Here, a souvenir from Edo

© Basho (Tr. Ryu Yotsuya)

watch birth and death:
the lotus has already
opened its flower.

© Soseki Natsume (Tr. Soiku Shigematsu)

dervishes whirling
- seeking a higher consciousness
third eye opens

© Chèvrefeuille

flute melodies
across green ocean waves
spring meadows

© Jane Reichhold

Six wonderful haiku to work with I think, not an easy task, but I think and belief that you all can do it. Enjoy this Renga With ...

This weekend meditation is open for your submissions next Sunday February 2nd at 7:00 PM (CET) and will remain open until February 9th at noon (CET). Have a great weekend.