Senryu : sleeping like a clam

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
Ise Futamigaura , 1858, by Utagawa Hiroshige aka Ando Hiroshige (1797-1858). Ando Hiroshige is famous for The Fifty-three Stations of the Tōkaidō

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