Sun Path – Tanka – September 22, 2015

 

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on this autumn day
we walk towards the haze
along a sun path
ah – this seasonal contrast
denies cold days ahead

Linked to:

Carpe Diem Modern Times Haiku #5 Richard Wright’s “an autumn evening”

In this feature we give tribute to the great American haiku poet Richard Wright … for the occasion Chèvrefeuille created a beautiful haiga to honour today’s guest:

Modern Times – Renga – September 9, 2015

People in Padua – Piazza delle Erbe

hear this crash of waves
in the streets of Padua
a sea of people

through the plazas – ebb and flow
a mulling sea of people

shopping, laughing, begging mass
a constant tide of people
through the city streets

constant hubbub of voices
this mulling sea of people

market in the morn
sidewalk cafes in the eve
Padua’s plazas

students, tourists and housewives
enliven Padua’s squares

watching the people
drinking coffee – eating toast
in morning sunshine

enjoying the crash of waves
this mulling sea of people

© G.s.k. ‘15

Written for: Carpe Diem Modern Times Haiku #4 waves crash

The challenge is to “create a short chained renga of a maximum of six (6) stanza. First I will give you a few classical rules.

1. 5-7-5 syllables;
   2. A moment as short as the sound of a pebble thrown into water;
   3.A kigo (season word)”

I loved my visit to Padua and enjoyed people watching as we walked through the centre of the city every day.  I didn’t see a single day when there weren’t a mass of people … sometimes they were mostly housewives, like in the morning, but students and tourists seem to be constantly pepper the area.  There are several faculty buildings near the main Plazas of Padua .. and in the plazas in the morning there are open fruit, vegetable and clothes markets. Around 2 o’clock, the market stands are taken down and the cafes that stud the “portico” of the plazas drive in with mini vans and set up their tables and umbrellas for the afternoon and evening aperitifs.  It’s hard to choose a kigo for the Plazas of Padua … they don’t really have a season. The principle plazas of Padua are three … Piazza delle Erbe, Piazza della Frutta, and Piazza dei Signori.  I hope to write more about them at a later date.

Modern Times – Life – August 27, 2015

through the window
a tree, that was a sapling
now hides the lawn

the newborn
has since become a man
wandering
in the labyrinth of time
searching for his life

© G.s.k. ‘15

Written for:

Carpe Diem Modern Times Haiku #3 Jerry Kilbride (1930-2005)

still in the taste
of afternoon tea . . .
my grandmother’s brogue

the cool surface
of each potato planted –
dark of the moon

firecrackers,
the old soldier’s fingers
tighten on his crutch

the wheelchair child
reaches for bubbles
she just blew

© Jerry Kilbride (1930-2005)

Carpe Diem – Margaret Chula’s “following my footprints” – August 19, 2015

Sakura

pretty pink fan
gift of an artist
cheery blossoms

early summer
rolling daikon in sushi
sticky business

hot  bancha
the shiatsu master sips
telling jokes

even the old tatami
frays along the edges
years of memories

© G.s.k. ‘15

Written for:

Carpe Diem Modern Times Haiku #2 Margaret Chula’s “following my footprints”

“Margaret Chula (born in 1947) lived in Japan for twelve years where she taught English and creative writing at universities in Kyoto. Her books include Grinding my ink (Haiku Society of America Book Award); This Moment; Shadow Lines (with Rich Youmans); Always Filling, Always Full; and The Smell of Rust. Her newest collection, What Remains: Japanese Americans in Internment Camps, a seven-year collaboration with quilt artist Cathy Erickson, includes poems in the voices of Japanese Americans interned during World War II. She has published poems in Prairie Schooner, Kyoto Journal, Poet Lore, America’s Review, and Runes, as well as in numerous haiku journals around the world. One of her haiku appears on Itoen tea bottles sold in stores and vending machines throughout Japan. Her one-woman performance of Japanese women poets (“Three Women Who Loved Love”), premiered in Krakow, Poland in 2003 and toured to Canada, Japan, and the U.S.”

By Chèvrefeuille

following my footprints
of fifty years ago
those endless summers

this early heat
a carp arches
into the raindrops

in strawmat raincoats
farmers plant rice
their boots croaking

returning
the borrowed umbrella
splattered with blossoms

© Margaret Chula (1947 – )