Carpe Diem Summer Retreat 2016 (30) on the veranda

Dear friends,

This is my last submission for the Carpe Diem Summer Retreat. 30 Days writing one haiku a day are over. It was really a joy.

on the veranda
a yellowish butterfly
the light of sun down

© Chèvrefeuille

See you again.

Carpe Diem Summer Retreat 2016 (29) shooting star

Dear friends,

The Summer Retreat is almost over still three days. It was a wonderful experiment and I have enjoyed launching it and to participate in it.

young leaves
whisper in the evening breeze
look! a shooting star

© Chèvrefeuille

See you tomorrow.

Carpe Diem Summer Retreat 2016 (28) such sadness

Dear friends,

My new submission for the Summer Retreat of Carpe Diem, the place to be if you like to write and share haiku.

such sadness
to see tears on young leaves
the bright sunlight

© Chèvrefeuille

See you tomorrow.

Carpe Diem Summer Retreat 2016 (27) deep silence

Dear friends,

A new haiku for the Summer Retreat of Carpe Diem:

spring breeze
cherry blossoms dance in the moonlight
deep silence

© Chèvrefeuille

See you tomorrow.

Carpe Diem Summer Retreat 2016 (26) cry of an eagle

Dear friends,

My submission for the Carpe Diem Summer Retreat 2016 for today:

whispering leaves
telling all wisdom of the steppes -
cry of an eagle

© Chèvrefeuille

See you tomorrow

Carpe Diem Summer Retreat 2016 (25) Black Mamba

Dear friends,

My submission of today for the Summer Retreat of Carpe Diem.

I'm paralyzed

as bitten by a Black Mamba -

awesome sunset

© Chèvrefeuille

See you tomorrow.

Carpe Diem Summer Retreat 2016 (24) a jack stone

Dear friends,

Here is my submission for Carpe Diem's Summer Retreat 2016. The Summer Retreat is a period of 30 days in which the goal is to create one haiku a day themed "one with nature". So here is my haiku for today ... and I hope it reflects the theme "one with nature".

a jack stone
sharpened by the brook
a masterpiece of art

© Chèvrefeuille

See you tomorrow.

Carpe Diem Summer Retreat 2016 (23) timeless beauty

Dear friends,

Yesterday I received very sad news through the mail. Jane Reichhold, Queen of Haiku, a very dear and close friend and haiku poetess passed away. She was 79. Jane ... Rest In Peace.

As you know I am hosting a daily haiku meme, Carpe Diem Haiku Kai, and back in 2013 I created a few special episodes with haiku by Jane Reichhold. My submission for the Summer Retreat is a haiku I created in response on one of those specials. A small tribute to Jane Reichhold.

timeless beauty -
the glint of polished pebbles
in the crystal brook

© Chèvrefeuille

Carpe Diem Summer Retreat 2016 (22) ghostly cobweb

Dear friends,

Today I have chosen to create a tanka for you to submit for the Carpe Diem Summer Retreat. I am not a great tanka poet, but I like to use this form on a regular base just to stay in touch with the form.

ghostly cobweb

shimmering in the early daylight

pearls of dew

fainting away when the sun rises

like a phantom

© Chèvrefeuille

Ghostly cobweb

Well ... I hope you did like this tanka. See you tomorrow.

Have an awesome weekend.

Carpe Diem Summer Retreat 2016 (21) sunflowers

Dear friends,

Here is my new submission for the Summer Retreat of Carpe Diem. This time I love to share a "cascading" tanka.

in my garden
sunflowers bow their heads
in honor of the sun
I plant a pair of sunflowers
in the backyard

in the backyard
no sun at all will be seen
only sunflowers
those beautiful little suns
in my garden

© Chèvrefeuille

See you tomorrow.

Carpe Diem Summer Retreat 2016 (20) silence (a haiga)

Dear friends,

Today's submission for the Carpe Diem Summer Retreat is one from my archives, it's a haiga which I created back in 2006. It's one of the first haiga which I made. It shows a Japanese Garden, which once was part of an exhibition of agriculture.

silence
the sound of water
happiness

© Chèvrefeuille

See you tomorrow.

Carpe Diem Summer Retreat 2016 (19) so fragile

Dear friends,

Here is my submissions for the Carpe Diem Summer Retreat of today. This haiku is inspired on a haiku by Basho, one of the four greatest haiku poets ever, which I love to share first here:

hatake utsu   oto ya arashi no   sakura asa

plowing a field
the sound of a violent storm
morning blossoms

© Basho (1644-1694)

With this haiku came a preface as was very common in those times:

Preface: 'On March 11, at the shrine of Shirahige in Araki village'. Usually in tanka the words 'arashi' (a violent storm) and 'sakura' (cherry blossoms) are combined in the fear that the blossoms will be blown down in a storm. So the 'wit' here is to combine these words with another (much more common) meaning. 

Plum Blossom

And this is my haiku:

so fragile
the white plum blossoms
in the evening sun

© Chèvrefeuille

See you tomorrow.

Carpe Diem Summer Retreat 2016 (18) sweet perfume

Dear friends,

The Summer Retreat of Carpe Diem Haiku Kai is going great and I am happy (as the owner and host of Carpe Diem Haiku Kai) that I started the Summer Retreat. It was just an idea, as once was Carpe Diem to challenge haiku poets to create a haiku a day ... and it happened ...

As a haiku poet I use a "haigo" or "penname" and as you know my "haigi" is Chèvrefeuille (French for Honeysuckle). I am a Dutch haiku poet and I write almost all my haiku in English. I even find it very difficult to create haiku in my own language, Dutch. Sometimes I even think in English and that's sometimes, e.g. at work, a "pain in the a..", but I cannot help it.

Honeysuckle (the English translation of my "haigo" ... Chèvrefeuille

For today's submissions to the Summer Retreat I have chosen to write a haiku in which my "haigo" is used.

sweet perfume
lingers in the warm summer night
Honeysuckle blooms

© Chèvrefeuille

And here is an oldie from my archives:

searching my inner self
following the way of Honeysuckle
path of wisdom*

* Honeysuckle, in her spiritual meaning is the path of wisdom to find your inner self.

See you tomorrow

Carpe Diem Summer Retreat 2016 "one with nature" (17) silk tree, a tanka

Dear friends,

As you all know I am a haiku poet and the most poetry I wrote are haiku, but today I love to share a tanka with you. A tanka, is like haiku, an ancient Japanese poetry form, but instead of three (3) lines a tanka is written with five (5) lines.
Several years ago I started to create as they are called "cascading haiku", and nowadays I "re-write" those "cascading haiku" to tanka, or stand alone haiku. Today's tanka "silk tree" is a re-done cascading haiku:

silk tree blossoms

in a soothing summer rain
trembling in silence
silk tree blossoms, so fragile,
in a summer breeze

© Chèvrefeuille

Silk Tree

Well .... see you tomorrow again. Have a great week.

Carpe Diem Summer Retreat 2016 (16) between roses

Dear friends,

Here is my new submission for the CDHK Summer Retreat:

between roses
the sound of a fountain
in the garden

© Chèvrefeuille

monastery

See you tomorrow.

Carpe Diem Summer Retreat 2016 (15) amazing autumn

Dear friends,

Here is my new submission for the first Carpe Diem Summer Retreat themed "one with nature". This time I have chosen for a whole new haiku inspired on the "free-style" haiku-ing of Santoka Taneda (1882-1940).

Santoka Taneda

Let me first tell you a little bit about this idea of "free-styling". What is different about Santoka compared to Basho, Issa, Ryokan, Saigyo, or Dogen, is that he did not follow the traditional conventions of the poetic form in which he worked. Santoka was a disciple of Ogiwara Seisensui (1884-1976), the leader of the "free-style school of haiku". This school of haiku discarded the traditional use of the season word and the 5-7-5 structure. Instead it opted for a freer verse form. John Stevens, in his book Mountain Tasting (published in 1982), explains that after Shiki's death in 1902, [...] "there became two main streams in the haiku world, one working more or less in a traditional form using modern themes and the other which fell under the 'new development movement." [...]

I think this so called "free styling" is what I mention "Kanshicho-style" in which the rules of haiku-ing are more free interpretable. It's a kind of haiku-ing I like to use and that made me once a renown haiku poet.

still life -
colorful forests
amazing autumn

© Chèvrefeuille

Of course the scene in this one is not really summer, maybe departing summer, but it is created with the the idea of "one with nature".

See you tomorrow.

Carpe Diem Summer Retreat 2016 (14) cry of an owl

Dear friends,

Summer looks over here in The Netherlands, temperatures are low, a lot of wind and rain, it feels more like spring or autumn, but well ... our Dutch summers aren't known for the warmth, but more for the rain.

30 Days of haiku-ing isn't easy to fulfill, but it looks awesome to see how many haiku and tanka are already linked to the Carpe Diem Summer Retreat ... see for your self, visit the Carpe Diem Haiku Kai Summer Retreat at: Carpe Diem Haiku Kai feel free to participate and share your haiku or tanka with all those poets who are already participating.

Here is my haiku for today:

lost in the field
only the stars as my compass  -
cry of a snowy owl

© Chèvrefeuille

See you tomorrow.

Carpe Diem Summer Retreat 2016 (13) like a chain of iron

Dear friends,

Ah ... the Summer Retreat of Carpe Diem ... isn't it great? But ... it's not easy to come up with a new haiku every day. As you know I am hosting Carpe Diem Haiku Kai, a daily haiku meme, and Carpe Diem has my first attention and than this weblog, my own personal weblog, follows.
A few minutes ago I created an all new post at Carpe Diem Haiku Kai ... and for  my own weblog I have to conquer a lack of inspiration therefore I have chosen to share a haiku from my archives, sorry.

Wisteria

The haiku I have chosen from my archives has to do with Wisteria (in Dutch "Blauwe Regen" or "Blue Rain") a most beautiful and very inspiring flowering plant.

like a chain of iron
the Wisteria climbs against the wall
reaching for the sky

© Chèvrefeuille

Awesome ...

Feel free to participate in Carpe Diem's Summer Retreat 2016 ... you are so welcome to visit us and become part of this "adventure".

See you tomorrow 

Carpe Diem Summer Retreat 2016 (12) blooming ice-flowers

Dear friends,

Far back in time, around 2005, I wrote my first English haiku:

a lonely flower
my companion
for one night

© Chèvrefeuille

Maybe you know this haiku or maybe you have read it elsewhere, but I have great and nice memories to this first English haiku ever written by me. It was published several times and it also was translated in several other languages.

For this new submission for the Carpe Diem Summer Retreat I have written a new one. That new haiku I will share hereafter, but it brought that first English haiku in mind, so I just had to share that haiku here with you also.

Ice-flowers

in a tiny corner
of the mansion's backyard
blooming ice flowers

© Chèvrefeuille

I hope you did like the read. See you tomorrow.

If you also want to participate in Carpe Diem's Summer Retreat 2016, "One With Nature", writing every day a haiku for 30 days? Than visit Carpe Diem Summer Retreat.

Carpe Diem Summer Retreat 2016 (11) whispering leaves

 Dear friends,

The Summer Retreat at Carpe Diem Haiku Kai looks awesome and a great success. It's really a joy to see how "one with nature", the theme of the Summer Retreat, in so many ways is used. Awesome.

listen, just listen
summer rain falls gently
on poplar leaves

© Chèvrefeuille

The Poplar's leaves are always trembling even when there is almost no wind at all. It is seen as the messenger of the gods. As the winds plays with the leaves of the Poplar they tremble and than the gods are talking to us.

"the voice of the gods"

whispering leaves
listen closely - the voice of the gods
deep silence

© Chèvrefeuille

Well ... this was my contribution for today ... see you tomorrow.