I trust you enjoyed frolicking with your foliage, haijin? I certainly had my fun with fallen leaves! Congratulations to last week’s contributors:
Haikai Challenge Participants| 1. Peter 2. Deborah 3. Jade Li/Lisa 4. Dwight L. Roth | 5. Reena Saxena 6. Indira 7. Tessa 8. Linda Lee Lyberg | 9. Jules 10. Xenia Tran 11. Revived Writer 12. Janice |
Powered by… Mister Linky’s Magical Widgets.
Onward!
The last Thursday of November arrives late this year. Nevertheless, it arrives; in the United States, that means Thanksgiving:
Thanksgiving is a national holiday in the United States, celebrated on the fourth Thursday of November.[1] It originated as a harvest festival. Thanksgiving has been celebrated nationally on and off since 1789, with a proclamation by George Washington after a request by Congress.[2] Thomas Jefferson chose not to observe the holiday, and its celebration was intermittent until the presidency of Abraham Lincoln, when Thanksgiving became a federal holiday in 1863, during the American Civil War. Lincoln proclaimed a national day of “Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the Heavens,” to be celebrated on the fourth Thursday in November.[3][4] Together with Christmas and the New Year, Thanksgiving is a part of the broader fall/winter holiday season in the U.S.
The event that Americans commonly call the “First Thanksgiving” was celebrated by the Pilgrims after their first harvest in the New World in October 1621.[5] This feast lasted three days, and—as accounted by attendee Edward Winslow[6]—it was attended by 90 Native Americans and 53 Pilgrims.[7] The New England colonists were accustomed to regularly celebrating “thanksgivings”—days of prayer thanking God for blessings such as military victory or the end of a drought.[8]
This week, write the haikai poem of your choice (haiku, senryu, haibun, tanka, haiga, renga) that alludes to Thanksgiving.
As always:
Here’s how the challenge works:
1. write the haikai poem of your choice.
2. post the link of your post to Mister Linky.
3. pingback by posting the link to the challenge on your site.
4. read and comment on other contributors’ posts.
Happy Thanksgiving, haijin!
Frank J. Tassone 
Leave a comment