clammed up in my quilt
alarm tears me from my shell
autumn dreams depart
senryu by M. Nakazato LaFreniere
Chèvrefeuille challenged us to revise a classical haiku by Basho on the Ise Shima Wedding Rocks.
hamaguri no futami ni wakare yuku aki zo |
蛤の ふたみにわかれ 行秋ぞ |
a clam torn from its shell departing autumn |

As I could not revise it — it is hard to revise haiku as it’s boiled down to it’s essence as it is — I went on a slightly different road, pulling words from the original as prompts: clam, tear, shell, autumn, depart.
Using these words, I created a senryu. I was remembering when living in Japan, I had decided to take a sunrise photo of a different set of Wedding Rocks between Oita and Miyazaki. The alarm had rang before dawn of course. Leaving my warm futon, shivering in the pre-dawn cold, I got dressed and went on my way. I ended up making a New Year’s card with it.
I wrote a longer post about the Kamiura Rocks on Senryu: dawn.
References:
February 21st 2018, Revise It
Heeding Haiku With Chèvrefeuille
Mindlovemisery’s Menagerie
List of texts: #125
Author #1. Matsuo Bashô (松尾芭蕉)
Era: Yamato
Classical Japanese Database
Second life photo by M. LaFreniere, avatar Kayla Woodrunner
Kamiura Rocks photo by M. LaFreniere
Fonts:
North Blue by Mellow Design Lab
leaf and twig by Mellow Design Lab
©2018 M. Nakazato LaFreniere, all rights reserved