Carpe Diem #1596 Black Forest

Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,

Welcome at the last episode of our wonderful January 2019 month in which we have explored the beauty of classical and modern kigo (seasonword). For this last episode I have a nice modern kigo taken from Jane Reichhold's "A Dictionary of Haiku". Today I love to challenge you to create a "fusion-ku" with the two given haiku Jane Reichhold. The modern kigo for today is "Black Forest" and here are the haiku to work with:

black forest
night extinguishes
the snow

sun and snow
still in the pines
the black forest

© Jane Reichhold (Extracted from her "A Dictionary of Haiku", a modern saijiki)

Black Forest

Look at the image above ... this is what "Black Forest" is. Bare branches covered with snow. It makes nature awesome, but also mysterious and magical. I think Jane has made a wonderful choice with this modern kigo.

Here is my humble attempt to create a "fusion-ku" with these two haiku by Jane:

pines covered with snow
the sweet perfume melts in the sun
ah! listen ... that dripping

© Chèvrefeuille

Hm ... I don't know ... is this a "fusion-ku"? It's for sure (how immodest) a good haiku, not a masterpiece, but its one of my best since a long time.

This episode is NOW OPEN for your submissions and will remain open until February 6th at noon (CET). I will try to publish our new episode, the first of February, later on. By the way I Haven't yet decided which theme we will have in February. I have two ideas, first a Tan Renga Challenge month or ... second another journey. I will decide later ... so I hope I can surprise you all.

Carpe Diem #1586 withered leaves

Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,

"Withered leaves" is our modern kigo for today's episode. It's taken from Jane Reichhold's "A Dictionary of Haiku" section: winter, subsection: plants. A wonderful modern kigo to work with I think so no further explanation needed.

Withered Leaves

And to awaken your muses ... here are a few haiku extracted from Jane's Saijiki as examples for this modern kigo:

up to a branch
wind took a winter leaf
let it fall again

snow
cooling the colors
withered leaves

frost spikes
the growing cold
of withered leaves

© Jane Reichhold

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

Carpe Diem #1578 Amaryllis (modern kigo)

Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,

I hope you all have had a wonderful weekend full of inspiration and joy. I had a nice relaxed weekend and I enjoyed it a lot. Tomorrow (January 7th) I will start in a new position as a senior oncology nurse, a kind of manager, at a nursing home in my hometown. As I told you earlier I started in the VU Medical Center in Amsterdam, but travelling to the VU Medical Center took to much of my energy, so my health became worse. So I had to decide to resign from the job in VU Medical Center. I am glad that I have found another wonderful job ... I am excited to start there.

This month we will explore the seasonwords (kigo) for winter. A kigo is a word that indicates the season in which the haiku scene was seen. This month I will try to inspire you through modern and classical kigo for winter. Today I have chosen a nice modern kigo (taken from Jane Reichhold's "A  Dictionary of Haiku") ... Amaryllis.

Amaryllis

The Amaryllis is typical for this time of the year, Christmas and New Year. We see them often here in The Netherlands, but I think you all know this beautiful flower.

Here are a few haiku themed "Amaryllis" created by Jane Reichhold:

swollen
the amaryllis bud
already red

low-slanted sun
in the red amaryllis
turning on lights

© Jane Reichhold (taken from the online version of "A Dictionary of Haiku")

I found a nice "story" about the Amaryllis. I love to share that "story" here too, just for fun or to help your inspiration.

[...] "Legend has it that the amaryllis - the stunning red flower we've come to associate with the holidays - began as a shy, timid nymph. Amaryllis fell deeply in love with Alteo, a shepherd with Hercules' strength and Apollo's beauty, but her affections were unrequited. Hoping that she could win him over by bestowing upon him the thing he desired most - a flower so unique it had never existed in the world before - Amaryllis sought advice from the oracle of Delphi.

Following his instructions, Amaryllis dressed in maiden's white and appeared at Alteo's door for 30 nights, each time piercing her heart with a golden arrow. When at last Alteo opened his door, there before him was a striking crimson flower, sprung from the blood of Amaryllis's heart. With this romantic - albeit tragic - tale as its beginning, it's not surprising that today the amaryllis has come to symbolize pride, determination and radiant beauty." [...] (Source: Teleflora)

This episode is NOW OPEN for your submissions and will remain open until January 13th at noon (CET). I will try to publish our new episode later on. For now ... have fun!

Carpe Diem #1537 Decay

Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,

Welcome at a new episode of Carpe Diem Haiku Kai. This month all our prompts have to do with autumn. That means that I will challenge you with classical and non-classical kigo (seasonwords) for autumn, haiku about autumn by the classical haiku poets like Basho and Chiyo-Ni and many more possibilities.

So ... the leaves are falling ... I hope you all have had a wonderful weekend and that you all are in good health and fortune. I had a nice easy going weekend while on the nightshift.
The future of our hospital is still very uncertain. As you all know the hospital where I am working suffered from bankruptcy, but we have still a small group of patients to care for. Tomorrow (Monday November 5th) our A & E (emergency care) will be closed during the night and than slowly our hospital is closing its units. We all hope that there will be an investor to restart our hospital. If that's going to happen we don't know yet. Our curator hopes to close a deal with an investor and she hopes to realise that next Wednesday. So this week will be very tensive for our hospital, our patients and all of my colleagues and of course myself.

Urban Decay

Okay back to our theme / prompt for today. Today I have chosen to challenge you with a modern kigo (seasonword) taken from Jane Reichhold's "A Dictionary Of Haiku". Autumn ... my season, because I love autumn, but autumn is a season full of decay ... leaves are falling and nature goes into hibernation. So today's theme is "decay". Here are a few haiku by Jane Reichhold taken from her "dictionary", section: autumn, subsection: moods:

waiting room
a patch of sunlight
wears out the chairs

recycling old glass
the rocky beach
jewel-covered coves

a howling wind
at the deep ache
a broken bone

© Jane Reichhold

In the above image you can see another kind of decay. An old house taken over by nature, walls are tumbling down, moss grows and wallpaper leaves loose ...

Decaying roses (photo © Eleanor Lees)

Here are a few haiku from my archive on "decay":

decomposed flowers
silent witness of a relative
red tear-stained eyes

© Chèvrefeuille (2012)

the scent of autumn
that sweet smell of decaying leaves -
after the rain - stronger

© Chèvrefeuille (2014)

raking the garden
the sweet scent of rotting leaves
arouses my senses

© Chèvrefeuille (2016)

And here a new one, freshly created:

raging storm
colors fading away
leaves dance

© Chèvrefeuille

A strong feeling of decay I think, how immodest, I can see how this raging storm pulls at the leaves and finally the leaves let go and dance away further into decay.

This episode is open for your submissions tonight at 7:00 PM (CET) and will remain open until November 11th at noon (CET). I will try to publish our new episode later on. For now ... have fun!

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!