Have you enjoyed your birdsong serenades, haijin? Congratulations to last week’s contributors!

Haikai Challenge Participants

1. Dave Madden 2. joem18b 3. Li/Lisa 4. Rhen Laird

5. Jane Dougherty 6. Peter 7. Janice 8. Eugenia

9. Kerfe Roig 10. Jules

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Looking ahead:

Happy Easter!

Another year, another #haikai challenge on Easter Sunday. As I said last year:

Easter, itself, is a quintessential Spring celebration. While Christians celebrate it as the feast of Christ’s ressurection (the most significant liturgical celebration of the year), Easter is also a proclamation of awakening and rebirth. During this time of the year, many flowers bloom in the Northern Hemisphere, particularly in the New York Metropolitan area. Lawns have become green overnight. Birdsongs inaugurate each daybreak. Easter at its heart celebrates the fundamental fact that Life finds a way.

It’s especially important to remember that fact this year: Life finds a way. While we continue to socially isolate–and how hard it is to do so today for many of us–we must remember that we will overcome this, together.

This year, like last year, our kigo is the Easter Lily:

Lily
image: http://www.theholidayspot.com/easter/images/lily.jpg

A popular symbol of the Easter festival, the white lily is held as the traditional Easter Flower and represents love and hope. The single flower stem originating from a bulb represents the resurrection of Christ three days after his apparent death by crucifixion. Legend has it that white lilies were grown at the place where drops of blood fell from Jesus Christ’s body. Some Catholic nations regard white lilies as the symbol of the purity and divinity of Jesus Christ and dedicate them to his mother, Virgin Mary. This is the reason why churches are decorated with white lilies during Easter. 

Gifting white lilies to someone during this time indicates that you are very happy to be acquainted with the recipient. Giving yellow lilies to a person represents your request or advice to him/her to “live for the moment”. 

TheHolidaySpot

Write the haikai poem of your choice (haiku, senryu, haibun, tanka, haiga, renga, etc.) that alludes to the Easter Lily.

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.

For those of you celebrating, Have a healthy, safe and happy Easter, haijin!