Monday, April 28, 2014

Carpe Diem #459, Safflower


Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,

Today our new modern spring kigo is Safflower it's a very nice plant which has an extraordinary history. E.g. there were Safflower garlands found in the tomb of Tutankhamun and it's known that Safflower was already used in ancient Egypt to give color to all kinds of textiles.
Another maybe wellknown use of Safflower was in the alternative Chinese medicine. So Safflower goes far back in history and it's still in use as color, herb and in alternative medicine.

Credits: Safflower

As you know this month all our prompts are based on 'A Dictionary of Haiku', a so called Saijiki (list of kigo), manufactured by Jane Reichhold. As I have done in the most of our posts this month I will give the haiku which Jane wrote for the kigo we use here.

a field of safflower
there at the top of the hill
leaning on the sky

(c) Jane Reichhold

Isn't it a wonderful haiku? Jane has painted a wonderful image with her haiku ... you can see the picture right before your eyes.

Ah! That amazing sight
as far as man can see
field of Safflower

field of Safflower
reaches towards the horizon
a yellow sea

© Chèvrefeuille

That was my attempt to write a haiku with Safflower as kigo and I like how this gives me the same kind of visual as the one by Jane.

Credits: Safflower (2)

This episode is open for your submissions tonight at 7.00 PM (CET) and will remain open until May 1st  11.59 AM (CET). I will try to post our new episode, passing of spring, later on today. For now ... have fun!


2 comments:

  1. Difficult prompt, handled so well with that natural simplicity. That is the true secret.

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  2. Thank you for the introduction .. had never heard of safflower before... but the fields looks very much like rapeseed fields we have in Sweden... Lovely haiku..

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