Carpe Diem Weekend-Meditation #13 New Year's Eve

!! Open for your submissions January 1st at 7:00 PM (CET) !!

Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,

Welcome at the last episode of Carpe Diem Haiku Kai 2017. We have had a wonderful year and I am looking forward to host CDHK for you in a whole new year. For this weekend-meditation I have chosen the theme New Year's Eve ...

I had a very busy day so that's the reason why this weekend-meditation is later than planned, this weekend-meditation takes also a day longer, because you can submit your Japanese poetry a day later than I mostly do. This weekend-meditation is open for your submissions January 1st at 7:00 PM (CET).A New Year is within reach ... what are your plans, your dreams, your thoughts and ideas for 2018? Maybe you can share them with us through your posts or through your Japanese poetry. I hope to make CDHK even better than it already is and there are several ideas I am thinking about to make CDHK better than ever. Of course I hope to create several CDHK E-books and we will have again our season retreats in 2018.

!!!! Our CDHK prompt-list for January is ready you can find it above in the menu !!!!

HAPPY NEW YEAR

The theme for this weekend-meditation is New Year's Eve so here are a few haiku for your inspiration.

In classical Japan (following the Lunar calender) there was a fifth season ''New Year", and this season was from approximately 20 december 'til 20 January. I have a few haiku which have been written for this season:

the Great Morning:
winds of long ago
blow through the pine trees

© Onitsura

The Great Morning is the morning of New Year's Day.

for this New Year's Day
the sight we gaze upon shall be
Mount Fuji

© Sokan

And a last one:

the first sunrise
there is a cloud
like a cloud in a picture

© Shusai

All wonderful haiku on New Year's Eve or New Year's Day.

And here are a few haiku by Issa and Basho:

my shadow too
in good health...
"Happy New Year!"

New Year's gift of tea--
where did you go
on your journey back to me?

© Issa

Both are wonderful "new year" haiku. Let me look at a few haiku by Basho on New Year:

has spring already come?
I feel wealthy this New Year
with five sho of old rice

New Year's Day
I feel lonely just like
an autumn evening

And what do you think of this one by Yozakura, the Wandering Spirit?

nothing changes
every day will be the same
this new year

A wonderful series of haiku about New Year's Eve of New Year's Day. Let those haiku inspire you this weekend.

after New Year's Eve
life hasn't changed a bit -
another year gone

listen! listen!
the sweet silence 
the day after

New Year's Eve
fireworks enlightens the sky -
bad ghosts flee

© Chèvrefeuille

This weekend-meditation is open for your submissions January 1st at 7:00 PM (CET) and will remain open until January 8th at noon (CET). Have a great weekend and a wonderful start of 2018.

Carpe Diem "Little Creatures" #7, Sokan's "Reciting Frog"

Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,

You all will certainly know the "frog"-haiku by Matsuo Basho, it's one of his most famous haiku.

furuike ya kawazu tobikamu mizu no do

the old pond:
a frog jumps in, -
the sound of the water

© Basho (Tr. R.H.Blyth)

The pond is old, in an old garden. The trees are ages old, the trunks green with the moss that covers the stones. The very silence itself goes back beyond men and their noises. A frog jumps in. The whole garden, the whole universe contained in one single plop! - sound that is beyond sound and silence, and yet is the sound of the water of the old pond.
Well ... it's a told story, but this haiku by Basho is even known by non-haiku-poets.

And than there is that haiku by Sokan (1465-1553), a not so well known haiku poet from the 15th and 16th century, but he wrote wonderful haiku in my opinion.

te wo tsuite uta moshiaguru kawaza kana

placing his hands on the ground,
the frog respectfully recites
his poem

© Sokan (Tr. R.H. Blyth)

Unless one has seen the costume of the aristocracy of Old Japan, the full aptness of the comparison is lost. He is dressed in the Japanese style with his kamishimo, stiffly sticking out and exaggerating the shoulders. Bowing low from the squatting posture, he begins his recitation in a strangely frog-like, sepulchral voice.

In the Kokinshu (10th century) we can read the following lines about frogs:

[...] "The nightingale that chants in the flowers, the frog that dwells in the water - are not both makers of poetry?" [...]

Sokan's poem is a kind of joke on the frog, but in addition, and what makes it poetry, it shows us something of the real frog, something of its essential nature.

Yozakura (1640-1716) wrote the following haiku about frogs:

danro kounotori no sakebi no maede kaeru no kareno seishitsunitaishite

against his nature, 

a frog in front of the fireplace -
the cry of a stork 

© Yozakura

And now it's up to you my dear Haijin, visitors and travelers, to write an all new haiku inspired on this episode of "Little Creatures". Have fun ...!

This episode is open for your submissions today at noon (CET) and will remain open until next Thursday October 9th at noon (CET).