Day two of the Daily Post’s Haiku challenge from Krista, here is Tuesday’s entry.
Cercidiphyllum
Golden leaves glowing
Japanese Katsura tree
shines in autumn light
Tag: Nature
Travel Theme: Fragant
One of the joys of the autumn is to find fragrance in a garden. I’ve known this wonderful tree for a long time, but it still catches me by surprise, and I smell it before I remember and find it. 
It has dainty leaves that are a very pretty shape, and fresh shade of green in spring and summer, but then once they start to fall the divine aroma bursts out. It’s a Katsura tree, Cercidiphyllum Japonica, commonly known as a toffee apple tree. And that’s exactly what it smells like, especially if you walk on the leaves or crush them in your hands. Heavenly!
There will be another Katsura photo tomorrow for my Daily Post haiku challenge, but meanwhile this is my Ailsa’s Travel Theme, http://wheresmybackpack.com/2013/11/22/travel-theme-fragrant/
Weekly Writing Challenge: Haiku Catchoo
Krista over at The Daily Post says,
‘Your challenge, should you choose to accept it
In the words of Ray Bradbury, “Just write every day of your life…”. Your mission is to write five haikus — one for each of the five days leading up to this Friday when we will choose some entries and feature them on Freshly Pressed.
Of course, you can modify this challenge to suit your needs — you can write two haikus one day and three the next, or five all in one day, or one haiku every day from today through Friday — the choice is entirely up to you. If haikus don’t inspire you, you’re welcome to write a paragraph of prose instead. As always, the challenges are meant to be malleable so that they suit your needs.
While traditional haikus tend to focus on things found in nature — anything goes for this haiku challenge. You can write haikus about your dog, your house, your cat, your great aunt Tilly — anything that captures your muse. The object is to try a new form and put some variety into your writing projects.’
I really like this challenge. As some of you know I regularly write a Lazy Poets Haiku, Tanka or poem on Thursdays and I always use one of my own photos as inspiration. I really am a lazy poet, an undisciplined dabbler, so the Japanese short forms really appeal to me. From now until Friday I will attempt to match a haiku to a photo, here is day one.
Tutu’d white ladies
will you dance in the forest
glowing pas de deux
To join in or read some more polished work, http://dailypost.wordpress.com/2013/11/25/challenge-haiku/
Lazy Poets Thursday Tanka
Spent Beauty
Flaming acer leaves
now that summer is over
last bright offering
season sends you tumbling
trickling over the fall
This week Celestine Nudanu has joined me and has created a wonderful tanka based on my photo, visit her and have a look. http://readinpleasure.wordpress.com/2013/10/17/a-tanka-autumn/ Join in too if you feel like it!
A Byegone Tradition
When I was a girl one of the most exciting things at this time of year was collecting conkers! My route home from school was through a park with big, old, Horse Chestnut trees, and the big boys always got the first go. They would throw sticks high up into the branches, in the hope of knocking down some of the prickly cases. Boys being boys they were often just too impatient, and instead of waiting until they were ripe, succeeded in felling pale soft conkers that would’nt do the job. I would wait around until they were bored, and hunt in the rustling leaves until a found my shiny brown treasure.
Do you remember the game? If you grew up in England before the 1980’s you probably do. Conkers were more effective if you kept them to harden a little. Then you would make a hole with a meat skewer – do they still exist? Shove a piece of string through, knot it and then fight!
It’s the fighting that eventually called a halt to the free fun that had gone on for centuries. Apparently, when you aimed your conker weapon at your friends, there was a high chance you would do some serious damage, eyes would be knocked from their sockets, someone might choke, and there would be severe bruises causing agony all over your body. So health and safety required that conkers be banned from schools, and a whole generation has grown up barely noticing the September bounty.
Conkers were never really a weapon for me, I couldn’t hit my opponents to save my life, I was much more likely to hit myself. Strange though, I have no memory of any pain from those injuries, just lots of giggles and fun. Fact is I just loved the feel of them, their polished shine and rubbing my thumb over the pale bit. I still do and had to stop myself from bundling dozens into my pockets today. Let me know if lost an eye or bear the scars.
Lazy Poets Thursday Haiku
Small Tortoiseshell
Orange on orange
Sweet delicate butterfly
Feasting on nectar
Lazy Poets Thursday Poem
Druantia
Once I was fertile fecund my flowers
were the favoured of bees by the swarm
birds spread my seed unaware of north south divide
now I stand hacked worn and idle baking in the sun
with most of the life sucked from me
but my foot is damp there is hope yet
should you move me a few steps to this rich earth
I may send down roots
But perhaps you would prefer to preserve
rescue me I am of good wood
and will outlast these pitiful shrubs that surround me
just oil me polish me to a shine
I’ll stand as statue in a palatial pleasure gallery
and be stroked by appreciative hands
Pollen Drunk
One very happy bee!
Off the Wall
or maybe I’ve just lost the plot, what do you think? This is my attempt at this week’s photo challenge, which is really hard. Cheri Lucas Rowlands asks that we try to use photos with an unusual point of view but I found it difficult to come up with anything framed in an unusual way that I haven’t posted before.
I started to think about editing and had the idea of a dream perspective, this is the result.
Join in at http://dailypost.wordpress.com/2013/09/06/unusual/
Rommel told me off!
I confess I’m not very good at responding to all you lovely people who comment on my posts. It isn’t rudeness or even laziness, it’s just pure overload, full time work, study blah, blah, blah! Now Rommel is an absolute treasure and he pointed out that I asked a question but didn’t listen to the answers so now I’m going to.
These are the berries from a Guelder Rose, or Viburnum Opulum. The bush likes moist soil to grow in and I saw this one beside a village pond in Hampshire. The berries are a good source of Vitamin C but they have to be cooked and apparently they need a lot of sugar to make them palatable. 
These are elderberries, and not good to eat. Many, many years ago I picked bucketfuls to make wine. It was a rich, dark and syrupy drink that wasn’t really sweet enough for me, a bit like cough medicine. I prefer the light summery flavour of elderflower champagne, made from the delicate sprays of creamy white flowers. I’ve never tried making it because I worry about the little creatures that feast on the berries. If the flowers are all picked there wouldn’t be any would there? But it doesn’t make sense to simple Gypsy, because some people DO make it and there are still plenty of berries, perhaps they’ve done the maths.
This is a Cotoneaster, a common garden shrub that hugs a fence or wall and provides food for birds in winter and attract butterflies and bees. They are poisonous and would give you a very bad stomach.
Blackcurrants! Pretty and very shiny, but straight from the bush they are an acquired taste. They make delicious jam or jelly and are cooked with apples in a pie. The best possible use in my eyes is in a certain blackcurrant drink, full of Vitamin C that begins with R and ends with A!
Raspberries are one of my many favourite fruits and of course they are lovely in jam, and all sorts of desserts, especially with my dark chocolate brownies. But I prefer them straight from the cane, I never wash them just pick, blow away any lingering bugs and pop tehm right in my mouth.
So Rommel, am I forgiven?
If you don’t know him you should go and visit him, he’s been missing for a while but he’s back now and I’m so glad, he’s an absolute star. http://thesophomoreslump2.com/2013/09/03/eisa-festival-saying-sayonara-to-the-summer-in-style/
Lucid Gypsy 