Memorial Colors
Lavender salutes
red, white, and blue of our flag.
Pride and gratitude.
Red ~ Pic and a Word Challenge #187
Carpe Diem Weekend Meditation #81
Poetry Archive (5) loneliness or emptiness
Choose a haiku, tanka or other form of Japanese poetry from your archive and share it with us all. Tell us why you have chosen that poem … and create a new poem inspired on your choice.
A short sequence of 3-5-3 haiku dealt with emptiness for a challenge in another series. I like the way the first haiku sets up the second one, so the whole sequence is my archive choice. Can I write a new poem for the current challenge? Yes, and there is a reason to put it before the archive choice. The new poem is a 5-7-5 haiku:
© Igor Zakowski | 123RF Stock Photo
(Image has been cropped.)
I give to several charities that help hungry people in many places with a mix of short-term and long-term efforts. In particular, my next gift to CARE will be matched 5X. The matching grant offer on CARE.org/match will expire 2019-05-25. (A popup on CARE.org has another match that expires sooner, on 04-30.) If U can give more than whatever U may have already given to charities like CARE this year, now is a good time.
The cloud images in this post were in an earlier post (for a photography challenge) that emphasized synergy between pastel pink and green. Now I am responding to a haiku challenge with emphasis on synergy between poem and image in a modern haiga (with a photo as the image). Haiku #2 uses the modern kigo abalone.
To those who have not seen many nacreous clouds, the poems’ metaphors might seem far-fetched. Presenting the photos along with the poems they inspired may reassure readers willing to trust that the photographers refrained from deceptive editing. I took the calm photo; Sue Ranscht took the dramatic one.
© Sue Ranscht | Space, Time, and Raspberries
As the year pivots from winter to spring, crocus plants bloom and little frogs croak. We celebrate with a photo and a tanka.
Friendly Friday Photo Challenge – Feelings of Spring
[2019-03-22] Bummer. I want to photograph the inspiration for my haiku, but my old hands cannot go more than a few seconds w/o thick gloves in cold weather.
Hmmm. Tho unheated, my garage gets some warmth leaking from the furnace. I put on a pair of thin gloves that can be worn while doing some things that previously required bare hands. I open the garage door and look outside while standing just inside the garage. Maybe I can work enough of the camera’s buttons while wearing the thin gloves.
The lens zooms too quickly for fine control. I cannot move forward or backward to compensate for zooming too far out or in. Oh well, I can crop the image later to compensate for zooming too far out. Is there a serviceable view in some direction from where I can stand w/o getting too cold? Hmmm. I try five views and go with the last one.
While it does illustrate my haiku, my photo is admittedly not of standalone quality. I can live with that. Any partial workaround for growing old is a small triumph to savor.
Cee’s Fun Foto Challenge: Texture
While haiku usually have 3 lines, some haiku do have just 2 lines. For example, Santoka Taneda (1882-1940) wrote a number of 2-line haiku.
After writing my first 2-line haiku, I reworked it to be a 3-line haiku that I preferred. I posted both and found that a few readers preferred the original 2-line version.
The haiku in this post is my second 2-line haiku, reworked from one with 3 lines. It is probably safe to say that it will stay at 2 lines, but don’t place a heavy bet.
