Delight in Company 2 - Tanka - December 2, 2014

sharing the duvet
sitting before the fireplace
a glass of white wine
listening to Chopin
after our winter concert

(C) G.s.k. '14

Linked to Carpe Diem Haiku Kai -Delight in Company

Analyze That Haiku - September 24, 2014

A little while back we analyed a haiku for Carpe Diem Haiku Kai .. and it was interesting to see the various aspects of the readers!

Today I'll be looking at another haiku offered by our host Chevrèfeuille:

seeking for relief
aching of a broken heart -
love isn't forever

© Chèvrefeuille

 

 

 

 

Love.  

 

This is one of those words that has so much meaning and so many aspects that it's actually difficult to even know what one means by love.  Or at least that's how it is for me.  I've of course been "in love" and I've loved places and things.  I love my children and my family, I love my friends.  But as hard as I love, I've come to realize that love is an intimate feeling that sometimes has nothing to do with whom or what I love.

 

In the haiku, I feel we're looking at that aspect of love that is outside ourselves though.  The mirrored love one shares with other people (or why not our pets). Shared love.  The reciprocal attraction, that like life itself is born and grows and sometimes dies. 

That's the sort of love that breaks ones heart, because we are still "in love" whilst the other ... is no longer able or willing to share our love.  I've know this experience as well.  Since I was very young, I often travelled and changed homes, losing contact with those I'd loved, being left with only memories of events and places.  I've loved romantically too ... and the attraction died.  Sometimes the one I loved passed from this life.  

 

But my question is this ... the love we feel inside, though the object is far away or no longer part of this life ... is it still love?  Of course it is.  So maybe the haiku in this sense is inexact.  Love continues to exist, eventhough the receptacle of that love may no longer be able to receive our love.  I'd call that heartbreak or mourning or many other sad things ...

 

sitting by the firside
thinking of us together
when love was young

urn on the cupboard
remembering all we never said
and now your gone

globetrotting
mountains - deserts - tundra
love in a suitcase

the wind whispers
you're here - inside me
winter memories

(c) G.s.k. '14

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Writing With Basho (4) - "has spring come" - July 19, 2014

Today we look at Basho's haiku once again on Carpe Diem Haiku Kai.  Chèvrefeuille gives us a special treat, this is the master's first saved haiku:

 "As he wrote/composed this haiku he was a young guy of nearly 20 yrs old. And in my opinion this haiku looks like the haiku of a beginner, but as we will look closer ... this haiku is a masterpiece, one of his first masterpieces. This haiku isn't well known, but I think you will like it."

haru ya koshi    toshi ya yukiken    kotsugomori

has spring come
or has the year gone?
second-to-last-day

© Matsuo Basho (Tr. David Landis Barnhill)

( With this haiku came a preface, as was very common in those times. That preface was: ''Today we have the first day of spring in spite of the date''.

I think you can imagine why Basho wrote this haiku, so I leave it ... no explanation ... just visualize the scene.)

tender rose bud
will it blossom or wither?
a new season

© G.s.k. '14

I don't know what my first hailu ever was --- but this is my first published haiku on Bastet and Sekhmet's Library (now  private):

Rain, thunder and wind by night
Then came the morning
Cristal skies and light.

For more information about Basho, click the link above and visit today's post.