Tan Renga Challenge #84

Well friends, it’s been quite the week at the old home place for me: busy, sick, injured, I could go on but – honestly – I doubt you want to hear it! LOL

I’ve had little to no time or energy to write this week; I missed several days that I may try to catch up, we shall see.  But I always look forward to the tan renga on Friday and this week is no exception. So I’m literally making the time, taking pauses to save the post as I go, to participate in this challenge tonight. As a side note, I’m not sure why it is that I have a fondness for this style but I certainly do.

The prompt provided by CDHK is the first three lines with the remainder of the piece being my writing. You can find more information on all things haiku and this particular challenge here.

from a treetop
emptiness dropped down
in a cicada shell

© Basho (Tr. Jane Reichhold)

Seventeen years brings forth life
Only weeks to savor it

© Greg Wolford 

Although I’m not a fan of the cicadas, there is something profoundly sad to think of the time they spend “coming to life” only to survive for such a wee period of time. In a way, their life-cycle is a bit of a mirror of ours: We spend years learning, growing, gaining wisdom, and so forth and, for most folks I think, just about the time we start to “come up” or really get it our time is up … or very near so.

“How do you know what your life will be like tomorrow? Your life is like the morning fog—it’s here a little while, then it’s gone.”
James 4:14 (NLT)