Poets United Midweek Motif ~ Cherry Blossoms

photo by Totomai

What a strange thing!

to be alive

beneath cherry blossoms.

― Kobayashi Issa, Poems

In the cherry blossom's shade

there's no such thing

as a stranger.

― Kobayashi Issa

Everyone feels grief

when cherry blossoms scatter.

Might they then be tears–

those drops of moisture falling

in the gentle rains of spring? 

–Otomo no Juronushi

photo by Totomai

Midweek Motif ~ Cherry Blossoms

Cherry blossoms mean springtime and cherries in summer, yum!  They also stand in for clouds, impermanence, beauty and sadness and more.  We can travel on their petals. Today we have been blessed with amazing photos of the blossoms by Totomai Martinez who featured them in his blog last Friday: Sakura.  There you will find his recommendations for Cherry blossom contemplation (Hanami) in Japan.  The poems above are in the Japanese poetic forms of haiku and tanka.

photo by Totomai

Your Challenge:  Build a poem with Cherry blossoms as your central image or recurring motif.  If you use a photograph, be sure to credit the photographer.

photo by Totomai

April Inventory

BY W. D. SNODGRASS

The green catalpa tree has turned

All white; the cherry blooms once more.   

In one whole year I haven’t learned   

A blessed thing they pay you for.   

The blossoms snow down in my hair;   

The trees and I will soon be bare.

. . . .  

(read the rest HERE at the Poetry Foundation)

Misreading Housman

BY LINDA PASTAN

On this first day of spring, snow

covers the fruit trees, mingling improbably   

with the new blossoms like identical twins   

brought up in different hemispheres.   

It is not what Housman meant

when he wrote of the cherry

hung with snow, though he also knew   

how death can mistake the seasons,

. . . . 

(Read the rest HERE at the Poetry Foundatiuon)

For those who are new to Poets United: 

Post your Cherry Blossom poem on your site, and then link it here.



Share only original and new work written for this challenge. 



If you use a picture include its link.  



Please leave a comment here and visit and comment on our poems.






(Our next Midweek Motif is "enlightenment.")












Oh, yes!  Today is the first day of National Poetry Month in the USA, Canada and a few other countries.  Good luck to all of you who are accepting a challenge to write a poem a day during April.  I am going to try with help from prompts at Poetic Asides, NaPoWriMo, Magaly Guerrero  and Imaginary Garden with Real Toads.  We'd love to know if you are attempting the challenge.  Please share links to the sites you are using for prompts and community during the challenge. Thanks!  ~Susan for Poets United

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I Wish I'd Written This

Haiku By Kobayashi Issa (1763-1827)

Translated by David G. Lanoue

flowing in the hut's

gate...

the Milky Way

sound asleep

there is peace on earth...

pond snail

on one side

snow falling, the other

spring rain!

with the dripping

of paper umbrellas...

spring mist

the lover cat

his face so alert

comes home

through green bamboo blinds

a pretty woman

in white

birdsong in bamboo grass--

too shy

for the fence

a fresh-made dewdrop

is cool too...

moon at the gate

Or I should say, I wish I'd written these, as they are not one poem but separate haiku. I subscribe to a site called Daily Issa, and receive one in my email inbox every day. These are a random selection of some recent arrivals.

Issa is considered one of the four great Japanese haiku masters, the others being Basho, Buson and Shiki. Haiku juxtapose two images, and the poetry is supposed to happen between or outside the words, like an 'aha!' moment. These four men were indeed beautiful exponents of the art. My favourite is really Basho, whose work is  probably the most quoted, but I love them all. In Issa I particularly like a sort of quirkiness, and the way he often includes people in these nature poems, placing humanity as part of nature, equal to (not greater or lesser than) other living things. As well as a poet, and an artist whose sketches often accompanied his haikiu, he was a lay Buddhist priest.

You can find more of his work here and here. (If you Google, there are yet more places.)

Also David Lanoue has recently released a new book: Issa's Best:  a translator's selection. And for practical reasons a selection is all it can be: in his 64 years Issa wrote over 20,000 haiku! It's available in print and also in both a Kindle edition and a Nook edition.

(You will note that they are not in lines of 5/7/5 syllables. I don't speak or read Japanese, but those who do say that our syllables are much longer than Japanese. Therefore contemporary haikuists writing in English now tend to try for greater brevity than 5/7/5. Some like to use short/long/short lines; others ignore line length, making the images paramount. Lanoue's translations can go either way.)

The Daily Issa site has moved and become a Yahoo group. (The link above takes you to an archive.) If you wish to receive the daily emails, go here to join.

Poems and photos used in ‘I Wish I’d Written This’ remain the property of the copyright holders (usually their authors).