Christmas Fair – Choka – December 11, 2015

Christmas Market in Arco

in the square candles
glow inside the wooden huts
lighting up bright gifts,
toys, candy and hand-made quilts,
could be Santa’s town
the smell of chestnuts roasting
cups of mulled wine too
and for the little children
camels for a ride …
all around play Christmas songs
smiling families browse
at Arco’s winter market

walking in the crowd
fond memories drift to me
other Christmases …
when we once walked hand in hand
drinking wine and browsing too

© G.s.k. ‘15

Carpe Diem Special #186 Georgia’s 2nd “days of Christmas” (choka)

The choka is one of the most ancient Japanese forms is the world of “waka” … they were rarely written out in the beginning, they were sung and usually were about warriors or kami or epic events.  Time passed and the form congealed until it became common to end the choka (which could be a long as one wanted but following a 5-7 onji pattern throughout) in two last 7 onji … thus creating a new form –  what often called “waka” which we now call tanka.  So, the tanka is the ending of a choka (as well as a completed “renga” line I suppose), only very few people write choka anymore. Here’s Chèvrefeuille’s great example of how to write a choka:

the cooing of pigeons
resonates through the gray streets –
ah! that summer rain
refreshes the dried out earth
filling its scars
the perfume of earth tickles
my nostrils
after the hot summer days
I dance in the rain
naked on the top of the hills
I feel free at last
nature around me comes to life
field flowers bloom
I see their beautiful colors
the perfume of Honeysuckle

ah! that summer rain
the perfume of the moist soil
tickles my senses
I lay down, naked in her arms
surrounded by Honeysuckle

© Chèvrefeuille