Carpe Diem Weekend Meditation #98 Choka ... the long Japanese poem

!! Open for your submissions tomorrow Sunday 18th at 7:00 PM (CEST) !!

Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,

Welcome at this delayed weekend meditation. My apologies (again) for being late I hadn't time enough to publish this weekend meditation earlier.

This weekend I love to challenge you to create a Japanese long poem, or Choka. Let me tell you a little bit more about the Choka.
The choka can be of almost any length, because its form depends on alternating phrases (or lines) containing either seven of five sound units (onji). The end of the poem is signaled by two lines of seven sounds. So the form is five/seven, five/seven, five seven, .... , seven/seven.
This was the most popular form of poetry in the 9th century as indicated by the large number of works in the celebrated anthology Man'yoshu (The Collection of Ten Thousand Leaves). This anthology of anthologies contained 260 choka and 4200 tanka.

Kakinomoto no Hitomaru

The poet Kakinomoto no Hitomaro, who composed most of his work in the last decade of the 7th century, took the choka to its highest lyrical point with his finesse in the use of ritual language.
The connection to tanka is evidenced by the envoy or hanka - a tanka-like poem attached at the end of the choka. Occasionally more than one envoy will close the choka. There have been a few efforts to revivie the form over the intervening centuries, but the form has failed to gain any popularity in Japan, and even less has been accomplished in English. (Based on Jane Reichhold's "Writing and Enjoying Haiku")

Here is an example of a choka from the Man'yoshu (no. 802):

The briefest chōka documented is Man'yōshū no. 802, which is of a pattern 5-7 5-7 5-7 5-7-7. It was composed in the Nara period and goes:

When I eat melons
My children come to my mind;
When I eat chestnuts
The longing is even worse.
Where do they come from,
Flickering before my eyes.
Making me helpless
Endlessly night after night.
Not letting me sleep in peace?

(envoy or hanka)

What are they to me,
Silver, or gold, or jewels?
How could they ever
Equal the greater treasure
That is a child? They cannot.

© Yamanoue no Okura (Tr. Edwin Cranston)

My personal weblog: Chèvrefeuille's Haikublog

I once wrote a choka (and published it on my personal weblog), but it isn't really my "cup of tea", but I love to share it here with you all:

the cooing of pigeons
resonates through the gray streets –
ah! that summer rain
refreshes the dried out earth
filling its scars
the perfume of earth tickles
my nostrils
after the hot summer days
I dance in the rain
naked on the top of the hills
I feel free at last
nature around me comes to life
field flowers bloom
I see their beautiful colors
the perfume of Honeysuckle

ah! that summer rain
the perfume of the moist soil
tickles my senses
I lay down, naked in her arms
surrounded by Honeysuckle

© Chèvrefeuille

It's a very nice form of Japanese poetry, but as I said above not "my cup of tea", but maybe it'is your "cup of tea". 

PS. You can choose your own theme.

This weekend meditation is open for your submissions next Sunday August 18th at 7:00 PM (CEST) and will remain open until August 25th at noon (CEST). Have a wonderful weekend ... or maybe I have to say "have a wonderful Sunday".

Carpe Diem Weekend Meditation #52 Tagore's "Last Curtain"

!! Open for your submissions next Sunday September 30th at 7:00 PM (CEST) !!

Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,

Welcome at our last weekend meditation of September 2018. I have another beautiful poem by Rabindranath Tagore to challenge you. As all the weekend meditations were this month. You have to "distil" a haiku (or tanka) from the given "long poem" by Tagore.

The poem by Tagore is titled "Last Curtain" and I think it don't need further explanation. To make your weekend meditation challenge a bit more difficult I love to challenge you to create a Troiku with the haiku you have distilled from this "long poem" or the haiku you created inspired on this poem. (more about Troiku you can find above in the menu).

Rabindranath Tagore

Here is the "long poem" by Tagore:

Last Curtain

I know that the day will come 
when my sight of this earth shall be lost, 
and life will take its leave in silence, 
drawing the last curtain over my eyes. 

Yet stars will watch at night, 
and morning rise as before, 
and hours heave like sea waves casting up pleasures and pains. 

When I think of this end of my moments, 
the barrier of the moments breaks 
and I see by the light of death 
thy world with its careless treasures. 
Rare is its lowliest seat, 
rare is its meanest of lives. 

Things that I longed for in vain 
and things that I got 
---let them pass. 
Let me but truly possess 
the things that I ever spurned 
and overlooked.

© Rabindranath Tagore

This weekend meditation is open for your submissions next Sunday September 30th at 7:00 PM (CEST) and will remain open until October 7th at noon (CEST). Have an awesome weekend!

Carpe Diem Weekend Meditation #50 Rabindranath Tagore's "where shadow chases light"

!! Open for your submissions next Sunday September 16th at 7:00 PM (CEST) !!

Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,

For this weekend meditation I have chosen another wonderful poem by Tagore to work with, but this time I love to challenge you a little bit more.

At the start of this month I told you that every weekend meditation would be a "Carpe Diem Distillation" episode, in that special feature the goal is to create a haiku (this time only haiku) from a given so called "long poem". This weekend I have "sympathy" as the poem to work with, also a beautiful poem by Tagore.

There is one difference with the other two weekend meditations we have had this month. This time you have to create a Troiku with your distilled haiku. More about Troiku you can find above in the menu. It's a creative way of haiku-ing invented by your host.

Surreal Landscape With Giant Buddha (image found on Shutterstock)

And now to our new poem by Tagore,


This is my delight,

thus to wait and watch at the wayside

where shadow chases light

and the rain comes in the wake of the summer.

Messengers, with tidings from unknown skies,

greet me and speed along the road.

My heart is glad within,

and the breath of the passing breeze is sweet.

From dawn till dusk I sit here before my door,

and I know that of a sudden

the happy moment will arrive when I shall see.

In the meanwhile I smile and I sing all alone.

In the meanwhile the air is filling with the perfume of promise.

©️ Rabindranath Tagore

Well ... try to create a haiku (only haiku this time) from this poem by Tagore and than create a Troiku with your "distilled" haiku.

This weekend meditation is open for your submissions next Sunday September 16th at 7:00 PM (CEST) and will remain open until September 23rd at noon (CEST). Have a great weekend!

Carpe Diem's Weekend Meditiation #49 Clouds and Waves by Rabindranath Tagore

!! Open for your submissions next Sunday September 9th at 7:00 PM (CEST) !!

Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,

Welcome at a new CDHK Weekend Meditation. As you know this month all the Weekend Meditations are a kind of "distillations". What does that mean? Well I will give you a long poem and you have to catch the essence of the long poem in a haiku or tanka.

This month I have chosen all poems by Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941), last weekend I challenged you with a poem extracted from his world famous "Gitanjali" and this weekend I have found a beautiful poem written by him on poemhunter.com "clouds and waves".

Clouds And Waves (taken from Panoramio.com, website doesn't exist anymore)

Clouds And Waves:

Mother, the folk who live up in the clouds call out to me-

"We play from the time we wake till the day ends.

We play with the golden dawn, we play with the silver moon."

I ask, "But how am I to get up to you ?"

They answer, "Come to the edge of the earth, lift up your

hands to the sky, and you will be taken up into the clouds."

"My mother is waiting for me at home, "I say, "How can I leave

her and come?"

Then they smile and float away.

But I know a nicer game than that, mother.

I shall be the cloud and you the moon.

I shall cover you with both my hands, and our house-top will

be the blue sky.

The folk who live in the waves call out to me-

"We sing from morning till night; on and on we travel and know

not where we pass."

I ask, "But how am I to join you?"

They tell me, "Come to the edge of the shore and stand with

your eyes tight shut, and you will be carried out upon the waves."

I say, "My mother always wants me at home in the everything-

how can I leave her and go?"

They smile, dance and pass by.

But I know a better game than that.

I will be the waves and you will be a strange shore.

I shall roll on and on and on, and break upon your lap with

laughter.

And no one in the world will know where we both are.

   

©️ Rabindranath Tagore

A wonderful poem. I am exited to read your responses, your "distillations". Well have an awesome weekend.

This weekend meditation is open for your submissions next Sunday September 9th at 7:00 PM (CEST) and will remain open until September 16th at noon (CEST). I will try to publish our new regular episode around that same time.

Carpe Diem #1272 October (Robert Frost)

Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,

I hope you have had a wonderful weekend. My weekend was awesome, we have met our "new" two grandkids, Jason and Dana. Our oldest son has a new girlfirend after he divorced from his former girlfriend. So we have two "bonus" grandkids now and that makes us happy. We are a loving family and we hope to become nice grandparents for these two "bonus" kids. So ... I had a wonderful weekend.

Today I have a nice anniversary episode for you to work with. As you know I have created several special features here at CDHK and one of those features was "CD-distillation" in which I challenged you to create haiku or tanka extracted from a longer poem. Back in our first anniversary month (October 2013) I had a nice poem by Robert Frost for you. That poem was titled "October" and I love to challenge you again with that same poem.

Logo CD Distillation

Let me explain the goal of this special feature, that's going into it's reprise today, for you. I have chosen a long poem by a renown poet. After reading the poem the goal is to create a haiku or tanka extracted from the poem, in which you have to try to catch the essence of the poem.

Here is the poem by Robert Frost (1874-1963) again:

October

by Robert Frost (1874-1963)           

O hushed October morning mild,
Thy leaves have ripened to the fall;
To-morrow's wind, if it be wild,
Should waste them all.
The crows above the forest call.
To-morrow they may form and go.
O hushed October morning mild,
Begin the hours of this day slow,
Make the day seem to us less brief.
Hearts not averse to being beguiled, 
Beguile us in the way you know;
Release one leaf at break of day;
At noon release another leaf;
One from our trees, one far away;
Retard the sun with gentle mist;
Enchant the land with amethyst.
Slow, slow!
For the grapes' sake, if they were all,
Whose leaves already are burnt with frost,
Whose clustered fruit must else be lost—
For the grapes' sake along the wall.

(Source: www.poets.org)

Autumn Colors (of October)

A wonderful poem, but for a haijin to long … so I have re-worked my cascading haiku into a tanka in which I catch the essence of the poem by Robert Frost.

at daybreak
one leaf falls and another –
bare branches
clothed with crystal drops of dew
at daybreak

© Chèvrefeuille

You can find the original post HERE. 

This episode is NOW OPEN for your submissions and will remain open until October 15th at noon (CET). I will try to publish our new episode, into the sea, later on. For now ... have fun and let me know if you would like to see this special feature back again at Carpe Diem Haiku Kai.

Carpe Diem #794 Hymn to the Aten (CD Distillation)

Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,

First this: My interview for a new job last Friday went ok, I am selected for a second interview tomorrow afternoon. So I am a little bit closer to that new job of Advanced Nursing Practitioner Oncology.
Second: Georgia asked me to change the "line-up" of our first Renga Party, because she has other obligations at her turn in the first round. I have published an update about this earlier today. I hope you all can understand that little change.

Today's prompt is Hymn to the Aten a hymn written by Akhenaten himself to praise and honor The Aten. For those who are already a long time member of our CDHK family they will understand the goal of this CD Distillation, but for those who are new I will give a short explanation.

The goal of the Carpe Diem Distillation is to write/compose a haiku or tanka inspired on a longer poem given, today that's the "Hymn to the Aten", but not an inspired haiku or tanka as we mostly do here. You have to "distil" the haiku or tanka from the longer poem.

The Great Hymn to Aten

Pharaoh Amenhotep IV {Akhenaten) came to the throne in c. 1370 B-C. to reign as co-regent with his father Amenhotep III (c. 1397-1360 B.C.). He attempted a religious revolution in which faith was focused on one god - Aten (the solar disk).

+ Splendid you rise in heaven's lightland,
O living Aten, creator of life!
When you have dawned in eastern lightland,
You fill every land with your beauty.
You are beauteous, great, radiant,
High over every land;
Your rays embrace the lands,
To the limit of all that you made.
Being Re, you reach their limits,
You bend them for the son whom you love;
Though you are far, your rays are on earth,
Though one sees you, your strides are unseen.

+ When you set in western lightland,
Earth is in darkness as if in death;
One sleeps in chambers, heads covered,
One eye does not see another.
Were they robbed of their goods,
That are under their heads,
People would not remark it.
Every lion comes from its den,
All the serpents bite;
Darkness hovers, earth is silent,
As their maker rests in lightland.

Credits: Aten disk

+ Earth brightens when you dawn in lightland,

When you shine as Aten of daytime;
As you dispel the dark,
As you cast your rays,
The Two Lands are in festivity.
Awake they stand on their feet,
You have roused them;
Bodies cleansed, clothed,
Their arms adore your appearance.
The entire land sets out to work,
All beasts browse on their herbs;
Trees, herbs are sprouting,

+ Birds fly from their nests,
Their wings greeting your ka.
All flocks frisk on their feet,

All that fly up and alight,
They live when you dawn for them.
Ships fare north, fare south as well,
Roads lie open when you rise;
The fish in the river dart before you,
Your rays are in the midst of the sea.

+ Who makes seed grow in women,
Who creates people from sperm;
Who feeds the son in his mother's womb,
Who soothes him to still his tears.
Nurse in the womb,
Giver of breath,
To nourish all that he made.
When he comes from the womb to breathe,
On the day of his birth,
You open wide his mouth,
You supply his needs.
When the chick in the egg speaks in the shell,
You give him breath within to sustain him;
When you have made him complete,
To break out from the egg,
He comes out from the egg,
To announce his completion,
Walking on his legs he comes from it.

+ How many are your deeds,
Though hidden from sight,
O Sole God beside whom there is none!
You made the earth as you wished, you alone,
All peoples, herds, and flocks;
All upon earth that walk on legs,
All on high that fly on wings,
The lands of Khor and Kush,
The land of Egypt.
You set every man in his place,
You supply their needs;
Everyone has his food,
His lifetime is counted.
Their tongues differ in speech,
Their characters likewise;
Their skins are distinct,
For you distinguished the peoples.

+ You made Hapy in dat (the Netherworld),
You bring him when you will,
To nourish the people,
For you made them for yourself.
Lord of all who toils for them,
Lord of all lands who shines for them,
Aten of daytime, great in glory!
All distant lands, you make them live,
You made a heavenly Hapy descend for them;
He makes waves on the mountains like the sea,
To drench their fields and their towns.
How excellent are your ways, O Lord of eternity!
A Hapy from heaven for foreign peoples,
And all lands' creatures that walk on legs,
For Egypt the Hapy who comes from dat.

+ Your rays nurse all fields,
When you shine they live, they grow for you;
You made the seasons to foster all that you made,
Winter to cool them, heat that they taste you.
You made the far sky to shine therein,
To behold all that you made;
You alone, shining in your form of living Aten,
Risen, radiant, distant, near.
You made millions of forms from yourself alone,
Towns, villages, fields, the river's course;
All eyes observe you upon them,
For you are the Aten of daytime on high.

+ You are in my heart,
There is no other who knows you,
Only your son, Neferkheprure, Sole-one-of-Re,
Whom you have taught your ways and your might.
Those on earth come from your hand as you made them,
When you have dawned they live,
When you set they die;
You yourself are lifetime, one lives by you.
All eyes are on your beauty until you set,
All labor ceases when you rest in the west;
When you rise you stir everyone for the King,
Every leg is on the move since you founded the earth.
You rouse them for your son who came from your body,
The King who lives by Maat, the Lord of the Two Lands,
Neferkheprure, Sole-ane-of-Re,
The Son of Re who lives by Maat, the Lord of crowns,
Akhenaten, great in his lifetime;
And the great Queen whom he loves, the Lady of the Two Lands,
Nefer-nefru-Aten Nefertiti, living forever.

(source: utexas.edu)

+++++++++++++++++++

Sorry for this long episode, but I couldn't decide to just pick up a few small parts of this "Hymn to the Aten", so I used it all. I hope you all are inspired through this wonderful poem, this Hymn for the Aten, to write an all new haiku or tanka distilled from this Hymn.

This episode is open for your submissions tonight at 7.00 PM (CET) and it will remain open until August 13th at noon (CET). I will try to publish our next episode, a new episode of our special feature Tokubetsudesu, later on. For now .... have fun!

Carpe Diem Tokubetsudesu (former Ghost Writer) #44, N. Scott Momaday's "the Delight Song of Tsoai-talee" CD-Distillation

Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,

As you maybe know in the beginning of this month I changed the idea of the Ghost Writer posts, it's not longer a ghost writer, but mostly I will make the episodes myself, but I also want to give our family members the opportunity to share their ideas and posts. As I stated at the start of this month I love to bring back the special features which we had and I would like to use the GW-post for that. Because the Ghost Writer isn't longer what it was I have decided to change the name of the Ghost Writer post to Carpe Diem Tokubetsudesu. Tokubetsudesu is the Japanese word for "special" and I think that's a better name. As we have now a new name for the Ghost Writer posts I have also changed the logo of this feature. On the logo you see a woodblock print of the holy mountain Fuji with blossoming cherry blossom in the front.

In this feature I will sometimes bring articles written by CDHK family members or several of the once used special features like e.g, Soliloquy no Renga or Carpe Diem Imagination or as in this episode a Carpe Diem Distillation in which the goal is to distill haiku (or tanka) from a longer poem. This CD Tokubetsudesu episode I have a CD Distillation for you opposed by Paloma of Blog It Or Lose It.

In this CD Tokubetsudesu episode Paloma wants to challenge you all to distill haiku from a poem by N.Scott Momaday.

Credits: N. Scott Momaday (1934 -)

Navarre Scott Momaday (born February 27, 1934) — known as N. Scott Momaday — is a Native American author of Kiowa descent. His work “House Made of Dawn” was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1969. Momaday received the National Medal of Arts in 2007 for his work that celebrated and preserved Native American oral and art tradition. He holds 20 honorary degrees from colleges and universities, and is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Momaday is considered the founding author in what critic Kenneth Lincoln has termed the Native American Renaissance.
“House Made of Dawn” is considered a classic in Native American Literature. (More about Momaday you can find by following the link under the photo).

Here is the poem which is chosen by Paloma of Blog It Or Lose It to distill a (or more) haiku from. It's a gorgeous poem, as I may say so, and I think it can inspire you a lot. It's a challenge of course to catch the essence of the poem in a haiku (or few), but it is also a way to look at haiku built from a longer poem ... 

The Delight Song of Tsoai-talee

I am a feather on the bright sky
I am the blue horse that runs in the plain
I am the fish that rolls, shining, in the water
I am the shadow that follows a child
I am the evening light, the lustre of meadows
I am an eagle playing with the wind
I am a cluster of bright beads
I am the farthest star
I am the cold of dawn
I am the roaring of the rain
I am the glitter on the crust of the snow
I am the long track of the moon in a lake
I am a flame of four colors
I am a deer standing away in the dusk
I am a field of sumac and the pomme blanche
I am an angle of geese in the winter sky
I am the hunger of a young wolf
I am the whole dream of these things

You see, I am alive, I am alive
I stand in good relation to the earth
I stand in good relation to the gods
I stand in good relation to all that is beautiful
I stand in good relation to the daughter of Tsen-tainte
You see, I am alive, I am alive

© N. Scott Momaday

Credits: Pomme Blanche or Prairie Turnip

I think this will be a wonderful challenge and I hope to see wonderful haiku. Thank you Paloma for sharing this poem with us.

This episode will be open for your submissions tonight at 7.00 PM (CET) and will remain open until April 24th at noon (CET). I will (try to) publish our new episode, harmony, later on. For now ... have fun, be inspired and share.

Carpe Diem Distillation #8, John McCrae's "In Flanders Fields"

Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,

Another CD-Distillation episode is ahead of us ... I know that our latest episode of CD Distillation is still open for your submissions, but I had to create this episode. Why?
Well ... in our Tan Renga Challenge of this week Managua's "let the ravens come" there were a few haiku-family-members who used poppies in their continuation of the Tan Renga. Bjorn of Brudberg's Writings was one of them. Bjorn shared a wonderful poem in his response on my comment a poem titled "In Flanders Field".

Inscription of the complete poem in a bronze "book" at the John McCrae memorial
at his birthplace in Guelph, Ontario, Canada

 
"In Flanders Fields" is a war poem in the form of a rondeau, written during the First World War by Canadian physician Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae (1872-1918). He was inspired to write it on May 3, 1915, after presiding over the funeral of friend and fellow soldier Alexis Helmer, who died in the Second Battle of Ypres. According to legend, fellow soldiers retrieved the poem after McCrae, initially dissatisfied with his work, discarded it. "In Flanders Fields" was first published on December 8 of that year in the London-based magazine Punch.
It is one of the most popular and most quoted poems from the war. As a result of its immediate popularity, parts of the poem were used in propaganda efforts and appeals to recruit soldiers and raise money selling war bonds. Its references to the red poppies that grew over the graves of fallen soldiers resulted in the remembrance poppy becoming one of the world's most recognized memorial symbols for soldiers who have died in conflict. (Source: Wikipedia)

Credits: John McCrae

 
I immediately fell in love with that poem, a real beauty, and I read and re-read it ... I had the feeling that I had to become one with this poem and reform it into a haiku. I had to create this new CD-Distillation episode ... I had to ...

Here is the poem "In Flanders Field" by John McCrae:

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

© John McCrae

What a gorgeous poem ... a real tribute to all those veterans.

Credits: Poppies on a graveyard

As you all know the goal of this CD-Distillation is to "distil" a haiku from the long-poem in this case "In Flanders Fields". It's a challenge of course, but even the classical haiku-poets used parts of other poems in their haiku ... so it's a classic way of writing haiku to distil haiku from a long poem.

This episode of CD-Distillation is NOW OPEN for your submissions and will remain open until June 17th at noon. Have fun, be inpsired and share your distilled haiku with our haiku-family.