Carpe Diem Haiku Kai Celebrates Its 9th Anniversary: #1850 dried grass

 

Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,

Welcome at a new (a bit belated) episode in our Anniversary month October 2021. I had a busy day, so hadn't time to publish earlier. As I told you yesterday, this month we will "dive" into our (very) rich history to reprise older episodes to inspire you with.

Today I love to share (again / reprise) the first episode of November 2019. Back than we didn't know about Corona and lived our life as we all do in our own way. Maybe it was an episode that looked into the future, because it was an episode inspired on the deadpoem of Matsuo Basho. We all know what Corona did to the world, and still does.

Here is the first haiku for your inspiration, it's the haiku that is seen as Basho's deadpoem, his last poem or Jisei:

tabi ni yande yume wa kareno wo kake meguru

falling sick on a journey
my dream goes wandering
over a field of dried grass

© Basho (Tr. Chèvrefeuille)

A wonderful haiku for your inspiration I would say. Become one with the scene, become Basho as he wrote haiku while laying on his grass mat ... surrounded by his most close followers ... try to imagine the scene ... and create your own haiku.

Here is mine:

a last breath
taken by the wind of Autumn -
leaves dance on

© Chèvrefeuille

This episode is NOW OPEN for your submissions and will remain open until next Saturday October 9th, 10:00 pm (CEST). You can add your submission to the linking widget hidden in our logo below.

Carpe Diem #1691 Troiku Month (20) The Snow Of Yesterday

Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,

Welcome at a new episode of our wonderful Troiku Month here at Carpe Diem Haiku Kai. Today I love to bring in a little bit of the zen buddhistic background of haiku. Not by giving you a lot of information, but just by a small piece of text I ran into today.

A tradition among Zen monks was to write a last haiku when they were about to pass out of this life to the next. This haiku by Gozan was written by him at the age of 71 in 1789.

the snow of yesterday
that fell like cherry blossoms
is water once again

© Gozan (1789)

It shows the circle of life a popular belief in Zen Buddhism. It also has the metaphorical meaning of transience as well with the cherry blossoms lasting a week, and snow melting almost immediately upon touching the ground.

Cherry Blossom With Mt. Fuji in the background

This kind of "death haiku" or "jisei" was and is still used by a lot of haiku poets around the world. For example ... Jane Reichhold wrote her last haiku short before she died, so even in modern times the jisei is used. Here is Jane's jisei:

with the moon

night too disappears

into the ocean

© Jane Reichhold (1937-2016)

It's a nice tradition and I hope it will be that forever ... I hope that when I have left this world one of my haiku, my jisei, will be there forever on my tombstone or plate on my urn. Ofcourse I don't have written it yet, because I was planning to become at least 100 yrs (smiles).

Well ... I have given you two haiku. First I would ask you to only use the haiku by Gozan, but feel free to create a Troiku with both haiku. It's your choice ...

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

Carpe Diem Theme Week (6) 7 Jane's last haiku

Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,

This is the (belated) last episode of our tribute Theme Week for Jane Reichhold. Jane was a very close friend and participated in Carpe Diem on the background. Without her knowledge I couldn't have created Carpe Diem. Without her gratefulness I couldn't have made several of our theme months on, for example, Matsuo Basho. I even think that Carpe Diem had died without her being co-host of it.

On July 28th 2016 Jane decided that she no longer wanted to live ... With her passing away the haiku world has lost one of the greatest haiku poets of modern times. Jane ... Queen of Haiku (and tnaka) will be missed. She will be forever in my heart and through Carpe Diem Haiku Kai I hope to honor her as long as Carpe Diem will exist.

Recently I spook with Werner, her husband, through the mail and he was glad that Carpe Diem Haiku Kai, our loving family of haiku poets, remembered him and that gave him strength. Remember Werner and his family in your prayers. He and Jane were together for over 45 years and they found each other in haiku. Jane Reichhold ... Queen of Haiku

In Loving Memory

Maybe you know that a lot of haiku poets wrote their Jisei and Werner shared Jane's last haiku with me through the mail. This was Jane's last haiku, her Jisei:

with the moon
night too disappears
into the ocean

© Jane Reichhold (1937-2016)

Share your memories and your haiku, tanka or other Japanese poetry form about Jane Reichhold with us all. Please remember Jane in your heart and let her spirit inspire you.

morning dew
evaporates at sunrise
a skylark's song

© Chèvrefeuille

This episode is NOW OPEN for your submissions and will remain open until August 18th at noon (CET).

PS. In September we will honor Jane again through daily prompts chosen from her "A Dictionary of Haiku".

Carpe Diem #593, "A Departed Soul" (July 2014) reprise

!! This episode I publish earlier than I normally do, because I am in the nightshift !!

Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,

We have to visit the last few months these days and than this celebration of our second anniversary is over. Than we can look back at a wonderful month full of reprise prompts from the start of Carpe Diem until now ...
As we are on a journey along memory lane we have arrived now at July 2014, in this month we had all CD-Specials because we had all haiku by the big five, Basho, Chiyo-Ni, Buson, Issa and Shiki. It was a tough month for me to prepare all those episode with haiku by the big five, but it was really a joy to that for you all ... my haiku-family-members of Carpe Diem Haiku Kai. Thanks to you all Carpe Diem Haiku Kai has become what it is right now ... a gathering of haiku-poets and haiku-poetesses ... a family ...

"A Departed Soul" refers to the haiku by Shiki which he wrote on his death-bed and which is seen as his death-poem or Jisei. In that episode, published on July 28th, Shiki was the one of the "big five" whom delivered the haiku for your inspiration. Here is that haiku again:

sponge gourd has bloomed
choked by phlegm
a departed soul

© Shiki

Credits: Sponge Gourd

A nicely written "death-poem" very nicely done ... I think Shiki has written the most beautiful death poem of all the "big five". Here are the deathpoems by Basho and Chiyo-Ni:

ill on a journey
my dreams start to wander
across desiccated fields

© Basho

having gazed at the moon
I depart from this life
with a blessing

© Chiyo-Ni

And ... what would be my death-poem, my Jisei? Maybe it could be this one ... it's a haiku in which the shortness of life is portraited through a comparison with dew ...

morning dew
evaporates in the early sunlight -
spirit climbs to the sky

© Chèvrefeuille

Well ... I hope you did like this episode and I hope it will inspire you to write an all new haiku ... This episode is open for your submissions tonight at 7.00 PM (CET) and will remain open until November 1st at noon (CET). I will publish our next episode, Movement (August 2014), later on.