(c) all rights reserved · haiga · poetry

#Haiki Challenge #113 — fallen leaves (ochiba)

msjadeli

Words fall in Autumn
like leaves, wet and fading —
an old man’s life ends.

 

The haiga was written in honor of Matsuo Basho, whose painting here inspired me, as the characters look like falling leaves.

Haiga is a Japanese concept for simple pictures combined with poetry, usually meaning haiku. In Basho’s time, haiga meant a brushed ink drawing combined with one of his single poems handwritten as part of the picture. … Sometimes the poem is handwritten or it can be computer generated, depending on the artist’s taste.

Image information:
Portrait of Matsuo Bashō by Yokoi Kinkoku, c. 1820. The calligraphy relates one of Bashō’s most famous haiku poems: Furu ike ya / kawazu tobikomu / mizu no oto (An old pond / a frog jumps in / the sound of water).

Frank J. Tassone is the host of Haiki Challenge.  Frank says:
This week, write the haikai poem of your choice (haiku, senryu, haibun, tanka, haiga, renga, etc.) that alludes to fallen leaves (ochiba)?

Published by msjadeli

mother, gardener, retired government worker, observer, reader, learner, bicyclist, woman who runs with the wolves, lover of music!

24 thoughts on “#Haiki Challenge #113 — fallen leaves (ochiba)”

  8. Pingback: #Haikai Challenge #114 (11/23/19): Thanksgiving #haiku #senryu #haibun #tanka #haiga #renga – Frank J. Tassone

  9. I like how the word frog in Japanese also means returning.
    “Frog” in Japanese is “kaeru.” While the kanji/kana involved in writing the words are different, it is pronounced the same way you say “return/to return” (also “kaeru”). As it has been explained to me, frogs can be linked with things/or people returning to a place or origin.

    Thanks for the history of the image. I like how you interpret the characters/ calligraphy as falling leaves 🙂

    Liked by 2 people

    Reply

Leave a Reply

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

Gravatar
WordPress.com Logo

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. ( Log Out /  Change )

Google photo

You are commenting using your Google account. ( Log Out /  Change )

Twitter picture

You are commenting using your Twitter account. ( Log Out /  Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. ( Log Out /  Change )

Cancel

Connecting to %s

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.