Morning Haiku and Waka – Haiku – January 26, 2015

warm summer vision
drifting on hot breezes
smell of coconuts

fields of cane
worn abandoned house
African vision
sweet breezes caressed my skin
heady smells of green grass

© G.s.k. ‘15

Time Glass Challenge – Carpe Diem Haiku Kai

The second prompt I’m going to write for is about the Japanese New Year kigo – Hoorai … which is a form of vision of paradise.  This was also written in the prompt:

Interestingly, the most ancient of human civilisations, the Sumerian, Assyrian and Babylonian, did not believe in the existence of either an afterlife or a heaven. In these technically advanced societies, humans were believed doomed to remain forever in the “house of dust” or darkness, which “none who enters ever leaves”. In this house, the inhabitants find that “soil is their sustenance” and “clay their food” where, clad in bird feathers, they see no light but “dwell in darkness”.

With this in mind and remembering the photo of the Time Glass Challenge above I write:

battle field
abandoned house of dust
ravens crow

The second haiku is based on a description of Hōrai from Kwaidan:

isle of horai
without memories of evil
sweet birdsong
souls fly without fear
eternal happiness

© G.s.k. ‘15

Carpe Diem #656 Isle Of The Blessed (Hoorai)  for further reading … here’s a choka I wrote the other day entitled: Charon’s Boat