As usual Chèvrefeuille has set an interesting poetic challenge on Carpe Diem. It’s well worth reading the article about Lake Tana and its rich spiritual history.
Some of the poems inspired by this challenge are truly lovely.
I’ve followed in my fellow poets’ footprints with a tanka:
The Blue Nile flowing
from Tana, once heard the songs
of monks and pharaohs.
Now the cloisters are ruins;
the songs but faded legends.
A summery challenge from Carpe Diem this time, inspired by blogger Laura Williams.
My garden is full of bees at present, so I give them a little mention.
Afternoon: baked still
by sun. Even the quaking grass
is motionless. But
the lavender bush shivers,
jostled by tiger-striped bees.
Carpe Diem again has an interesting and thoughtful prompt. This time the originator is Jane Reichhold who has published on haiku and modern kigo. The prompt is summer passing – a look at the fleeting nature of time, the seasons, life.
My contribution:
Today the woods are green;
soon they will be gold.
How quickly summer passes.
Once again an inspiring post on Carpe Diem. Basho is the model this time.
Today ideas came to me quickly, though, as usual, they needed time to work into the haiku form.
The mountain path
travels down as well as up.
You must follow both.
As usual Carpe Diem has given us an interesting challenge. The post containing it deals with the burning of ornaments at a fire festival. This is about leaving the old and taking on the new.
Fire is the medium for getting rid of whatever is holding you back. I think many religions, particularly Pagan ones, have a fire festival with this theme.
My haiku for this challenge is:
The New Year bonfire;
its white smoke rises skywards.
The flames warm my hands.
In a recent post the Carpe Diem site introduced a new-to-me poet, Tomas Tranströmer. We are given a Tranströmer haiku as an inspiration. The season word is ‘frigid’ which makes it definitely winter.
I’m not sure how close I’ve come to the model. but mine is winter too.
Willow trees lean over
the moonlit river, where ice
glitters like starlight.
This time the challenge is to write a haiku about kites. Apparently kiting is a worldwide phenomenon and popular with all kinds of people of all ages.
But not all kites are man made.
As usual the Carpe Diem site has links to a number of superb haiku. Mine needs illustrating.
Kite meets kite; ignore
each other. Bird and box have
their own agendas.
Bird from Wikimedia commons Brahminy kite at Nalbana Bird Sanctuary, Odisha India
Kite from Wikimedia commons file sechseckdrachen01 taken by Frank Swichtenberg
Carpe Diem has an interesting article on using all our senses to describe the world and not just sight and sound. How often are we 
conscious of the smell of a scene? Do we reach out and touch something to find out its texture? I love to touch the petals of flowers and their leaves – the variety of texture in the natural world is amazing.
Out of this comes a challenge to write about smell, and I’ve tried to do it justice.
The van, driven past
the wood’s edge, stirs up scents
of damp earth and rich green.
Reading the poems already posted suggests that most people concentrate on the perfume side of this sense, as I’ve done. One day, maybe, I’ll write about the stink of sewage – would that be in the spirit of haiku?
Carpe Diem has set us a lovely challenge this time. The prompt is ‘sunflowers’ – very evocative and open to many interpretations.
Fields of sunflowers;
each tracks the sun, east to west.
Nightfall will stop them.
The Carpe Diem site has several different challenges. The one I’m trying today is to complete a haiku given the middle line.
The given line is:
mists over the foreign highlands
Extra restrictions are that it must follow the classical form and use one more kigo (season word) for Autumn. ‘Mist’ is a classic Autumn word.
I looked up some kigo words and found them inspirational.
Now it is twilight;
mists over the foreign highlands
hide the harvest moon.
Although we only have to produce two lines, this challenge isn’t easy, but on the Carpe Diem site are links to a number of amazing poems it has inspired.
e a m harris 