Wednesday, July 9, 2014

Carpe Diem #510 Buson (2), ''fruitless blossoms''


Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,

Let us go on with the exploration of our ''big five'' haiku poets from classical Japan. Today our second haiku by Yosa Buson. Buson was a haiku-poet and he also created wonderful haiga as a painter ... so he was really an artist.
Buson had the honor to illustrate the first paper publication of Basho's ''Narrow Road to the Deep North'' (Oku No Hosomichi), the most famous haibun ever written. Buson however wrote wonderful haiku too.
In an earlier post at CDHK we had haiku about ''melon-flowers'' and the haiku by Buson which I love to share here is also on ''melons''.



adabana wa ame ni utarete uri batake

fruitless blossoms
are beaten by the rain
in the melon fields

© Buson (Tr. by Thomas McAuley)

A beautiful haiku I think ... well I hope it will inspire you to write haiku. Here is my attempt to write a haiku in the spirit of Buson.

every where I look
the yellow flowers of melons 
after a sunny day

© Chèvrefeuille

And now it is up to you. This episode is open for your submissions tonight at 7.00 PM (CET) and will remain open until July 12th at noon. I will try to post our next episode, Issa's second, later on. Have fun!


4 comments:

  1. This is a beautiful time of year. I belong to a natural foods co-op. And picking up my share every week of the newly harvested foods wonderful. In our last news letter they mentioned that the melons were about the size of baseballs. It will be a while yet before we do get our melons, but they will taste of summer :)

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    1. Very nice comment there, I must say.

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    2. Very interesting how you went the ''opposite'' way to Buson there, Chevrefeuille old friend.. Gives me the thought of trying similar in the future, to write a haiku with the ''opposite'' meaning than one presented.

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  2. I have finally solved one linking problem to comments, and I have a new laptop... became a need not a want !
    I am hoping that I can be more regular posting as I love the lessons, prompts and miss reading ll your wonderful posts.
    So far, I have not mastered the new system of not using emails, so am trying to remember to link thru facebook every day.

    Peace and love to all,
    Siggi in Downeast Maine

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