Carpe Diem Weekend Meditation #11 Full Circle - Wintertime

!! Open for your submissions next Sunday December 17th at 7:00 PM (CET) !!

Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,

Welcome at a new Carpe Diem weekend-meditation (with a new temporarily logo) our special feature for the weekends. For those who are new here ... I started a time ago with this special feature to have time for myself, the right choice was to do that in the weekend. Through that idea the submission starts at the end of the weekend (as you have read above).

This weekend I love to challenge you with a "full circle" titled "wintertime". What is a "full circle"?
The goal is to write haiku (only haiku) with the twelve (12) words I will give. It's a kind of word-whirl and you have to use the words given in the clock-wise direction. So every word has to come in the line of it's place on the clock e.g. hoar frost you have to use for line one (1) and breath for line two (2) and so on. The result will be four (4) haiku.

Full Circle

I will give you twelve (12) words (for every ''hour'') one word. The goal is to write haiku using the words as given in the clock wise way. (To help you a little bit in the right direction I have separated the 12 words you have to use through a slightly difference in the color. (haiku 1: word 1, 2 & 3; haiku 2: word 4, 5 & 6; haiku 3: word 7, 8 & 9; haiku 4: word 10,11 & 12)

Here are the 12 (twelve) words:

1. hoar frost

2. breath

3. morning light

4. mistletoe
5. cuddle

6. fireplace

7. poem

8. first snow

9. whisper

10. christmastree

11. gifts

12. smile

Christmas decorations

A nice series of words to work with I think. Let me give you my haiku created with the first three "hours" (words) of this series about "wintertime".

fragile hoar frost
melts through her warm breath
morning light awakens

© Chèvrefeuille

A nice haiku (how immodest) to end this weekend-meditation with. Have fun ...!

This weekend-meditation is open for your submissions next Sunday December 17th at 7:00 PM (CET) and will remain open until December 24th at noon (CET). Have fun ... and have an awesome weekend.

Carpe Diem My favorite haiku by ... #1 Matsuo Basho (1644-1694): a snowstorm of flowers

Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,

As you all know, back in October 2012, I started Carpe Diem to promote the beauty of haiku, that beautiful little Japanese poem with only three lines that celebrates the beauty of a moment as short as the sound of a pebble thrown into water.
During the years of CDHK's existence I noticed that other Japanese poetry forms, especially tanka, started to 'shine' at CDHK.
Just recently we decided to make CDHK a kind of place to promote other Japanese poetry-forms next to haiku. I do like that change, but it also makes me somewhat melancholic to those first months of CDHK therefore I created a new feature to honor the beauty of haiku.

This new feature I have called "Carpe Diem my favorite haiku by ..." and as you will understand, this new feature is only about haiku and your favorites. This new feature I will publish every Thursday and in every episode I ask you to choose your favorite haiku by the haiku poet/ess chosen by me.

For this first episode I have chosen ... not a surprise I think ... a haiku by Matsuo Basho, whom I see as my master. Basho has written wonderful haiku (more than 1000) and I love them all. Of course I have several favorites, for example 'frogpond', but for this episode I have chosen another haiku by Basho. This haiku I have never shared anywhere as far as I can recall. I think this is a beauty ...

mazu shiru ya Gichiku ga take ni hana no yuki

knowing it first
on the famous musician's flute
a snowstorm of flowers

© Basho (1677) (tr. Jane Reichhold)

Well ... did I say to much? I love to tell you a bit more about this haiku. Gichiku was a real famous shakuhachi player. The shakuhachi was a bamboo flute and at Basho's time Gichiku had a "hit" with "Yoshinoyama" a song about Yoshino the place to be if you love to see Cherry blossoms. It is said that Yoshino has the most beautiful Cherry trees of Japan.
Basho refers to this song by Gichiku, because he thought about Yoshino.

Cherry blossoms in Yoshino

As you all know one of my favorite themes for haiku are Cherry blossoms, I have written a lot of haiku about their fragile beauty and I share the anxiety with the Japanese haiku poets that those fragile blossoms of the Cherry tree are scattered through the wind ...

spring wind

torn apart Sakura blossoms -

a bamboo flute

© Chèvrefeuille

While I was creating this haiku I almost burst out in tears, because this is the pain I sense as the Cherry blossoms of my old Sakura are torn apart by the wind ...

What is the goal of this new feature? Well ... you have to choose a favorite haiku by Basho (for this episode) and try to "revise" the haiku.

This episode is NOW OPEN for your submissions and will remain open until August 20th at noon (CET). In our next episode of "My favorite haiku by ..." I will choose another haiku poet/ess, which one? I don't know yet, you have to wait.