Little Creatures - Spider Webs - October 18, 2014

Cedits: Dewy Cobweb

Today's featured writer on Carpe Diem Haiku Kai is Richard Wright (1908-1960) a modern haiku-poet. Famous as an early forceful and eloquent spokesmen for black Americans, author of "Native Son," and "Black Boy", he was also, it turns out, a major poet. In the last years of his life he discovered haiku and wrote in the classical 17 syllable form following the Zen precepts of writing about man's relationship to nature.  He wrote over 4000 haiku in the 18 months before his death.  Here are two:

 The webs of spiders
Sticking to my sweaty face
In the dusty woods.

© Richard Wright (1908-1960)

At a funeral,
Strands of filmy spider webs
On coffin flowers

© Richard Wright (1908-1960)

Here are also two examples from Issa and Buson on the same subject:

kumo no su ni tsuki sashikonde yoru no semi

on the moonlit spider web
an evening
cicada

© Issa

Spiders' webs
Are hot things
In the summer grove

© Yosa Buson

dry autumn flowers
 spider-web trap abandoned -
gnat's coffin

sticky spider-webs
in the abandoned house
cloying welcome

the spider's web
around the queen anne's lace
- reflects morning dew

© G.s.k. '14

  

Little creatures - October 10 2014

 Today's Little creatures talks about two lovely haiku by Buson:

ka no koe su nindo no hana chiru tabi ni

the voices of mosquitoes,
whenever the flower of the honeysuckle
falls

© Buson

 ka no koe su nindo no hana chiru goto ni

the honeysuckle;
with every petal that falls,
the voice of the gnats

© Buson

My life has taken me to many different countries and one of these was Djibouti, which I think is just about the hottest most inhospitable country in the world.  We lived for a year without air conditioning and then we found a small house that had airconditioning at least in the communicating bed-rooms.  The air condtioner was old and dripped terribly onto the wood-work around the bottom of the walls.  The first evening when we turned on the AC to go to bed though, we didn't know this yet. It was about an hour later that the room filled-up with winged termites. 

dripping water
from an old airconditioner
- fluttering  termites

I lived in the Phillipines for three years as a child.  The pathway around my house was lined with flowers, among which were many beautiful white honeysuckles. A neighbor taught me to suck the nectar from the bottom of the flowers ... delightful!

a flowered path
swaying white honesuckles
child and bee's delight

 ©  G.s.k. '14

Sucking Honeysuckles

Sluderno - August 29, 2014

among the herbs
 chickens growing plump
at Sluderno

walking in Sluderno
tiny gardens grow wild
herbs and flowers

For Carpe Diem's Little Ones:

"anew episode of our "Little Creatures"-feature and after two episodes about little insects, this episode is about little plants and flowers e.g. Sheperd's Purse as we can read in this haiku by Basho (1644-1694):

 furu hata ya nazuna hana saku kakine kana
if you look closely
a sheperd's purse flowering
underneath the hedge
(c) Matsuo Basho (Tr. Tim Chilcott)

  furudera ya hôroku suteru seri no naka

ancient temple
clay pot tossed around
in the seri (*)  field

© Buson (Tr. Chèvrefeuille)
(*) Seri = Oenanthe javanica = water dropwort

 "Seri is one of the seven sacred herbs of spring which are used in the spring festival "Nanakusa no Sekku" or "The Festival of Herbs". It happens to be that the Sheperd's Purse, in the haiku by Basho, also is one of the Seven Sacred Herbs of Spring"

in the meadow
peeling the leaves of daisies,
does she loves me?

© Chèvrefeuille

Writing with Buson (5) "a glimpse of dawn" - July 28, 2014

As we're nearing the end of July, we visit the great 5 for the last time at Carpe Diem Haiku Kai.  In this post I'll be writing with Buson:

shira ume ni akuru yo bakari to nari ni keri

the night almost past
through the white plum blossoms
a glimpse of dawn

 ©  Yosa Buson

Chèvrefeuille writes:

"Yosa Buson died on December 25th 1783 and the above haiku was, what we call, his Jisei or deathpoem. Even on his deathbed Buson wrote haiku as if he was painting ... what a gorgeous haiku he left behind as his soul travelled to Paradise."

A little cuckoo across a hydrangea(Haiga) by Yosa Buson

first splash of light
the whippoorwills sing softly
peaceful harmony

 © G.s.k. '14

Writing with Buson (4) - "flowers of the plum" - July 20, 2014

Buson was a haiku poet but was more famous for his painting and haiga (painting with haiku).  Here are two examples of Buson's haiga offered to us by Carpe Deim Haiku Kai (for more information and another painting click the link.)

sekizoro o suzume no warau detachi kana

year-end mummers
are a sight to make
the sparrows laugh

© Matsuo Basho (Tr. Addiss)

Sekizoro Singers by Yosa Buson

This is a haiga painted by Yosa Buson for the world famous haiku ''frogpond'' by Basho:

Haiga ''frogpond''

Buson wrote almost 3000 haiku in his lifetime and was a master of observation, due his painting skills. This is today's haiku prompt:

Sumizumi ni nokoru samusa ya ume no hana

in nooks and corners
cold remains:
flowers of the plum

© Yosa Buson (tr. RH Blyth)

This is Chevrefeuille's haiku dedicated to Buson:

fresh fallen snow
reflects the light of the full moon -
first plum blossom blooms

© Chèvrefeuille  

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One of the main products of our area are plums ...

late spring cold
surprises the first plum blossoms

in Sarca valley

Writing with Buson (3) - "on the shortcut path" - July 15, 2014

Into our third week of July, Carpe Diem Haiku Kai, introduces the third haiku by Buson!

chikamichi ya mizu fumi wataru satsukiame

on the shortcut path,

stepping through water to cross the meadow
in the summer rains.

© Buson (Tr. Chèvrefeuille)

The Shortcut (Haibun)

Many years ago, we decided to visit my husband's mother who lived in Tuscany.  Usually we'd take the highway to get there but we decided that it would be more interesting to get off the highway at a certain point and take a short cut. This way we reasoned we could avoid having to go all the way to Florence and then cut back to get to the village where she lived.

We got off the highway at Barberino di Mugello.  Once we arrived in that town, we followed directions in order to get to Prato which is near to where his mother lived.  We found ourselves in no time in the middle of a dark forest that ran over and through a mountainous area.  Sometimes the "road" was little more than a gravelled pathway just wide enough for an automobile.  At one point we took a wrong turn and found ourselves at an abandoned farm house and a dead-end.  Of course we had to turn back until we found the right road, half an hour later.

Eventually we did find our way to his mother's village, but we were 5 hours late arriving and his mother was frantic with worry! 

through the Tuscan hills
shortcut through the empty forests
lost in the dark

Writing with Buson - "Fruitless Blossoms" Haiku - July 10, 2014

Today's post is dedicated to Buson - this is the second week in Carpe Diem Haiku Kai's month dedicated to the big five.  Here's today's poetic choice for Buson:

adabana wa ame ni utarete uri batake

fruitless blossoms
are beaten by the rain
in the melon fields

© Buson (Tr. by Thomas McAuley)

Reading this haiku and looking out my window in this rainy cold summer, makes me reflect on the problems our farmers in our valley are having this year with the fruit crops.  The cherry harvest has been nearly a disaster!  But fruitless blossoms also makes me thing about the poppies in the fields ... this is a beautiful haiku to get into the feel of country life!

flowering grape vines
tattered by the summer storms
poppies flourish

© G.s.k. '14