Heeding Haiku With Chèvrefeuille September 23rd 2015

(credits: image)

Dear friends of MLMM,

Today, September 23rd,  Autumn starts at the Northern Hemisphere and as I look around me I can already see the wonderful colors in which Mother Earth is painting her environment.
Autumn is one of my favorite seasons and not only because of the wonderful colors, but also because of the moon. According to Japanese poets the moon of autumn is the most wonderful and beautiful moon. Let us take a look at the classic haiku poets. They have written a lot of haiku about the moon. All those “moon”-haiku are all for autumn unless the poet says it through his/her words, “summer moon” for example is about a moment in summer.

For this week’s episode of Heeding Haiku With I love to challenge you to write/compose haiku (or tanka) inspired on the moon of autumn. Here are a few examples.

First two haiku by (my master) Matsuo Basho:

meigetsu ya ike o megurite yo mo sugara

the autumn full moon:
all night long
I paced round the lake

asamutsu ya   tsukimi no tabi no   ake banare

bridge of morning
a journey of moon-viewing
at dawn

© Basho

Or what to say about this tanka, which I have written myself:

the night deepens
darker and darker the sky
without streetlights
the night sky looks like a light show
the full moon and thousands of stars

© Chèvrefeuille

I am really a “moon-lover” so to say. It’s one of my favorite themes to compose haiku (and recently tanka). On my personal WP blog “Chèvrefeuille’s Haiku” you can read more “moon”- haiku written/composed by me.

A while ago I discovered a series of haiku composed by Yozakura (1640-1716) until than I never had heard about him, but he has written wonderful haiku in almost the same spirit as Basho did. I love to share a haiku by Yozakura here with you too:

bright moon
bare branches moving like arms –
the first snow

© Yozakura

Another nice example which I love to share is a haiku by one of the most well known haiku poetesses, Chiyo-Ni (1703-1775):

meigetsu ya ittemo ittemo yoso no sora

autumn’s bright moon,
however far I walked, still afar off
in an unknown sky

© Chiyo-Ni

And to dazzle you … I have another haiku which I recently wrote:

at the mountain top
it looks like I am bigger than the moon
in her first quarter

© Chèvrefeuille

Well … I hope you are inspired enough to write/compose an all new haiku (or tanka) about autumn … have fun!

When you have written your poem(s), please TAG Heeding Haiku with Chèvrefeuille and Mindovemisery’s Menagerie. Then add your link to the Mister Linky widget below.