Haiga Story – The Cat and the Pigeons – April 10, 2015

flying menace
stalking the cat
city thief

hunter hunted
birds dive for dinner
the cat hisses

© G.s.k. ‘15

It’s a hard life for the cats of Burano.  Often people  put out a bit of food on the sidewalks in front of their homes for the stray cats of the island.  The gulls and the pigeons immediately start to stalk the cat … and as one distracts puss another dives in to take off with some of his lunch.  This reminded me of many a documentary I’ve watched with my children about the lions of Africa hounded by vultures trying to carry off some of their supper.  Of course, lions, being in a group easily control the situation.

Buson’s “I came to the cherry blossoms” – April 5, 2015

the canal is closed
wind-blown cherry blossoms – fall
under leaden skies

I warned  the stragglers
“go back the canal is blocked”
I and they were one

© G.s.k. 15

Yesterday, although it was cold and cloudy we went to visit the Islands around Venice. We kept running into a group of kayakers, in Burano …  they went up a canal blocked by a low bridge and had to try to turn back in this crowded canal!

This is a beautiful haiku by Buson for our inspiration at Carpe Diem Haiku Kai’s Sparkling Stars where we were to write a “classical haiku” in a similar vein:

hana ni kite hana ni ineburu itoma kana

I came to the cherry blossoms;
I slept beneath them;
this was my leisure

© Yosa Buson

1. 5-7-5 syllables
2. a kigo (in this particular haiku) cherry blossom (a spring kigo)
3. a kireji (a cutting word, in Western languages mostly interpunction)
4. interchangeable first and third line
5. if possible, a deeper spiritual meaning