Morning Haiku and Waka - NaPoWriMo - April 5, 2016

bold minstrel sings

his bawdy melodies bright

for his lady love

morning serenade

sweet perfume of mimosa

and thoughts of you

what more can be said of spring

then a warming I love you?

© G.s.k. '16

Day Five - 

Haiku Horizons - One - April 4, 2015

one drop of water
inside a roaring river
unification

some would say
the loneliest number -
one

the sound of one hand
swooshing through the summer air
then silence

lone cicada call
soloist in late evening
his last call

© G.s.k. '16

Heeding Haiku - For a Friend's Father - March 30, 2016

the mighty tree

caught in the breeze of time

whispers spring tidings

the rain echoes its refrain

into the silence of night

through the garden
of your life that continues
he will walk with you
his presence in a sound
or the slant of spring sunlight

© G.s.k. ‘16

For Chèvrefeuille

Haiku Horizons: Cat - March 28, 2016

peekaboo ...

awaiting her human

the cat watches

spring warmth

the cat rolls on the warm grass

pure ecstasy

observing a cat's pleasure

a lesson in living

grace and flight

attacking a goose feather

the cat pounces 

© G.s.k. ‘16

Sabi is a Chaise Longue - Haibun/Haiga - March 28, 2016

What is "sabi"?   Something old, past, demode ... something that's somehow a faded memory like the old plastic chaise longue in the haiga above,  that in its heyday was an object that made someone happy or proud to own it.  I can almost feel the sensation that must have accompanied that first vision of the object ... the elation.  Now, so many years have passed.  The chaise longue sits in my son's garden in Padua, slowly losing it's lustre as it weathers.  No one remembers who bought it .. the house has changed had many many times over the years as one group of student substitutes another, no one even uses it except the cat. That to me is one meaning of "sabi". 

chaise longue
memories of summer's days
long forgotten

© G.s.k. ‘16

§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§

"As fascinated as Westerners have become with the word, the Japanese have maintained for centuries that no one can really, truly comprehend what sabi really is and thus, they change its definition according to their moods. Bill Higginson, in The Haiku Handbook, calls sabi – "(patina/loneliness) Beauty with a sense of loneliness in time, akin to, but deeper than, nostalgia." Suzuki maintains that sabi is "loneliness" or "solitude" but that it can also be "miserable", "insignificant", and "pitiable", "asymmetry" and "poverty". Donald Keene sees sabi as "an understatement hinting at great depths".

So you see, we are rather on our own with this! I have translated this as: sabi (SAH-BEE)- aged/loneliness - A quality of images used in poetry that expresses something aged or weathered with a hint of sadness because of being abandoned. A split-rail fence sagging with overgrown vines has sabi; a freshly painted picket fence does not." As a technique, one puts together images and verbs which create this desired atmosphere. Often in English this hallowed state is sought by using the word "old" and by writing of cemeteries and grandmas."

 Carpe Diem #947 grass pillow

Morning Haiku and Waka - March 26, 2016

Dodoitsu - Honey-suckers

under the warm spring sunshine
inside blossoms and bright blooms
bees hopped hither and thither
(poor honey-suckers)

© G.s.k. ‘16

Fuyuko Tomita's "black-iron wind bell" - February 8, 2015

with glass and bamboo
this February wind chimes
a bright morning song

Garda’s wind-song

daily chiming through the valley

endless rhapsody

© G.s.k. ‘15

Today at Carpe Diem Haiku Special, we're trying to learn to write in the style of a Dutch Haiku Poet named: Fuyuko Tomita.

Kurogane no fuurin byakuya o nariyamazu

Black-iron wind bell

in the white summer night

tinkles on and on

© Fuyuko Tomita

Here are some of our host's haiku on the subject of wind chimes:

evening walk

the sound of a wind chime

deep silence

© Chèvrefeuille

And a cascading haiku from his  archives at his base weblog:

in the spring breeze

the wind chime sounds

with every step

with every step

the melody of spring rain

follows me

follows me

the melody of a Buddhist chant

Om Mani Padme Hum

Om Mani Padme Hum

resonates in my heart and soul

in the spring breeze

© Chèvrefeuille