A renga with Bashō

Posted on Categories Poetry

Carpe Diem’s Renga Challenge #1 invites us to choose from a selection of Basho’s early haiku (as translated by Jane Reichhold) and to create a Renga of at least 6 stanzas by arranging Basho’s haiku and inserting two-line verses in between.

inside the temple

visitors cannot know

cherries are blooming.

©️Bashō

robin calls from the treetops

blend in with the morning chants

©️Ontheland

the voice of reeds

sounds like the autumn wind

from another mouth

©️ Bashō

leaves fly like paper dreams

a season’s short-lived splendour

©️Ontheland

what a sprout

a dewdrop seeps down the nodes

of generations of bamboo

©️Bashō

the moon paints fresh oak leaves

once barren branches shimmer

©️Ontheland

the old woman

a cherry tree blooming in old age

is something to remember

©️Bashō

an ancient mountain stupa

stands watching the setting sun

©️Ontheland

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Published by Janice

My name is Janice.  I started blogging as Ontheland when I moved from Toronto to a rural area near Kingston, Ontario in Canada.  Over time I have found myself writing poetry, mostly in Japanese forms, such as haiku and haibun.  One of my deepest interests is the natural world: the joy of it and how we can look after it better.

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