chimera cat perfection is subjective
--Pegah Rahmati Nezhad (Tehran, Iran)
* * *
early thaw
planting new seedlings
above the bomb shelter
--Mike Fainzilber (Tel Aviv, Israel)
* * *
This year’s rice
rhythmical washing
mambo dance!
--Murasaki Sagano (Tokyo)
* * *
Spring pond--
the sky trembles
at every step
--Adama Sissoko (Landvetter, Sweden)
* * *
cease-fire
a seed sprouting
from the rubble
--Nazarena Rampini (Pogliano Milanese, Italy)
* * *
long way to grow--
a bamboo sprout
among tall elders
--John Richard Stephens (Maui, Hawaii)
* * *
cabbage white
on a purple leaf--
butterfly letter
--Deirdre Hines (Letterkenny, Ireland)
* * *
nicked hoe blade
keeping time
to a field chant
--Sandip Chauhan (Great Falls, Virginia)
* * *
Pouring themselves feet first
into the river--
the arriving swans
--Scott Reid (Monte Rio, California)
* * *
the day ending
workers trample
squares of dead sod
--Joseph Elliott (Kingston, Ontario)
------------------------------
FROM THE NOTEBOOK
------------------------------
‘Beginnings of poetry’
spray painted on the wall
of Checks Cashed Here
--Patrick Sweeney (Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania)
Seeing people on the streets struggling to make ends meet, the haikuist started to dream about the rural life where he used to live in Misawa, Aomori Prefecture. Traveling on a narrow road that led to the interior of the Tohoku region in 1689, Matsuo Basho praised the farm folk he heard singing while planting rice seedlings as fast as they could: Fuuryuu no hajime ya oku no taue uta
beginnings of poetry
the rice-planting songs
in the remote north
Yutaka Kitajima noted, “farmers and their families are freed from hard labor through machinery, so that we seldom see the elderly badly bent over” in Joetsu, Niigata Prefecture.
Green paddies...
no planting song, yet
the clatter
Suffering pain every time she bends over, Masumi Orihara’s friend was told by the surgeon who removed her intestine that it may take a longtime to weather that loss. Urszula Marciniak aided a gardener with a green thumb and blue back in Lodz, Poland.
touching the spring soil
phantom limb pain
slowly fades
* * *
a box of bulbs
this year she can barely
bend down
Paul Callus heard thanksgivings for the filling of reservoirs crucial for a good harvest in Safi, Malta. Arvinder Kaur prosperously started working in the cool of dawn in Chandigarh, India. Christina Chin shook hands with a paddy farmer in in Sarawak, Borneo, who invited her back to enjoy a tilapia fish and rice harvest feast in the autumn.
monsoon season--
chants echo over
the paddy fields
* * *
rice fields
the glint of first light
on silver anklets
* * *
planting rice
on the Bario highlands
rice-fish fry wriggle
Noga Shemer planted the poetics of antithesis in Storrs, Connecticut. The parallelism in her haiku created a rhythmic, musical quality that highlighted the cyclical nature of life.
to the planted seed
what seems like a burial
is a beginning
While “enjoying the stretch of light” after chores, Jeremy Haworth whistled to an indigenous songbird “perched on the gorse, out on the scrubby edges” of his linseed field in the Irish Midlands.
gathering dusk
the red of a linnet’s crown
in the windblown scrub
Moving to a new home in Stockton, California, that she plans to color purple, Sally Fox posted this haiku titled, “The Spring Time Postman.” Douglas J. Lanzo hopes to cool down Chevy Chase in Maryland.
The breeze fans jasmine,
Blue wisteria flutters
Mingling pale pastels
* * *
adding a touch of purple
to shade koi hues
water hyacinth
Sissoko planted soil in her hometown of Nanterre, France. Marilyn Humbert lined up her haiku and garden Down Under.
Someone hums softly
the song they tried to bury…
the seeds remember
* * *
autumn sun
carrot seedlings
in straight rows
Amir Kapetanovic climbed a stepladder to get a better view of his handiwork in Zagreb, Croatia.
giant’s ladder--
bean seeds in the furrow
swelling in the rain
Now that last frost warnings have been lifted in Ajax, Ontario, Chen-ou Liu recited a horticulturalist’s directions on how to transplant bulbs. Mirela Brailean observed the lessons of a biology class take root in Iasi, Romania.
onion sets
one inch deep, root-side down...
green tops in my mind
* * *
fresh seedlings
quietly in their seats
the preschoolers
Dorota Czerwinska was overjoyed to see neighbors come to lend a hand in Warsaw, Poland. Busy gardening in Algiers, Algeria, Fatma Zohra Habis hesitated before replying to a social media post.
returning home
volunteers bloomed
in mother’s garden
* * *
planting the garden--
in my inbox
an old friend
Tony Williams snipped and cut all day long in Glasgow, Scotland.
April sun
a day of pruning, and
thoughts of old friends
Having his fingers on what this world needs more of, and capturing the zeitgeist of these baffling times, Jerome Berglund sowed seeds of thought in New Orleans, Louisiana.
scattering seeds
nobody thought to be
uninformed
Melissa Dennison dreamed in Bradford, England. Rob Scott got a finger soiled in Melbourne, Australia.
pressing
dreams of summer
into warm damp earth
* * *
soft rain…
poking holes
for new seeds
Pungent ammonia tickled Randy Brooks’s nose in Taylorville, Illinois.
new garden dirt
the scent of manure
on fingertips
Refika Dedic dispatched a joyful greeting from Bosnia and Herzegovina.
the breeze
carries the flowers
to the other side
Dorna Hainds brushed sand with her hand in Lapeer, Michigan. Believing water was near at hand, Stephen J. DeGuire kept walking through hot sand in California. Low on fuel and battery power in Gottingen, Germany, Ivan Georgiev’s last sight was a mirage of a ship on the horizon of a salty sea flowing through the desert.
sandglass
after spilling time
perfectly round
* * *
sweat-filled eyes
goal is that distant
Fata Morgana
* * *
fata morgana
over the Strait of Hormuz
flying tankers
Anthony Q. Rabang slowly began his day in Santa Catalina, Philippines.
sunrise
pulling the cow
pulling the carriage
Eva Limbach paused at a farm in Saarbrucken, Germany.
a cock crows
like there is no tomorrow
freshly ploughed field
Julia Guzman spotted a pink mirage reflecting off water on the horizon near Cordoba, Argentina.
flooded fields…
faraway
a colony of flamingos
James Penha poetically described Marc Chagall’s “I and the Village” painting that hangs in the Museum of Modern Art in New York. Raj Bose eyed a green sprout.
woman upended
no distraction for a cow
who eyes the green man
* * *
crumbling school wall
a Bodhi seedling reaching for
the bright sunlight
D.F. Tweney’s dream might have led him far from his bed in San Mateo, California.
suddenly awake
this sleeping body not quite
my own
Speaking out in Mississauga, Ontario, Shannon Wallace felt a disconnect between the inner and outer realities of her physical and mental self.
white orbs sparkle
a voice not mine
inside my mind
Merry May Ma is an artist-filmmaker based in Los Angeles, California.
warm sunset and gentle breeze
time slips from your sleepy face
forever on my canvas
Erin Castaldi enjoyed being in the pink for as long as she could in Mays Landing, New Jersey.
heavy-hearted
the last spilling
of cherry blossoms
Eva Limbach watched as unsuspecting limbs were cut in Saarbruecken, Germany.
still blossoming
on the eve of destruction
cherry trees
Lilia Racheva transformed Camelia Antonescu’s artwork into verse.
gentle breeze...
sakura petals
enter the painting
Doc Sunday strolled along one of six scenic rivers in Hiroshima, nicknamed the city of water. He juxtaposed “people having luxurious lunches under cherry trees” while “a white heron was seeking fish.” The scene confirmed his belief in the proverb: dumplings rather than flowers (hana yori dango).
riverside
cherry blossom lunch...
herons fish
Laila Brahmbhatt hopes to see more of the color purple in New York.
postcard from Kashmir
tulip buds threaded through a shawl--
will it blossom?
T.D. Ginting treasured his hometown of Medan, Indonesia.
the hill, the wellspring;
the rainforest
as it is, (p)reserved
Recalling when Pope John Paul II was attacked on May 13, 1981, Marek Printer prayed at the church of Our Lady of Fatima at the foot of a medieval castle in Checiny, Poland.
stone in my shoe
I slowly walking towards
the Fatima grotto
Artur Zielinski slogged along a muddy path in Gdynia, Poland. Bose’s whole family formed lasting memories in Honolulu, Hawaii.
morning rain…
at the forest shrine
a blurred footprint
* * *
beachcombing
three generations leave footprints,
among shells and sea glass
Mariola Grabowska listened to the wishes of her family in Warsaw, Poland. Tracy Davidson appealed rhetorically in Warwickshire, England.
a history lesson
my son doesn’t want
more martyrdom
* * *
a scattering of seeds
if only peace
could be planted so simply
Basho bid farewell to his disciple Sora (1649-1710), at the Sumida river on May 16 (which corresponded to March 27 on the lunar calendar): Yuku haru ya tori naku uo no me wa namida
Passing spring
the birds cry and fish
have tears in their eyes
Overwhelmed with things to do and feeling “simply smothered under drudgery,” Kitajima stayed in bed with a spring fever to read George Orwell’s 1946 essay “Why I Write.”
Drowsy day
saxophone attack...
turtledove
Stephens sat by a pond. Morgan Ophir juxtaposed symbols of purity and enlightenment in Sydney, Australia.
yet another war--
falling bombs reflected
in the turtle’s tears
* * *
frog dreams
waterlilies becoming
the moon
Marie Derley salted oily fries and mussels in Ath, Belgium. Sagano salted a healthy, organically grown vegetable salad.
the sound of salt
falling on hot chips
sowing season
* * *
turnip pickles
in slightly salted
spring breakfast
Anne Marie McHarg quickly soaked up a spill in London, England.
Cooking oil spills
Across the kitchen floor
Shower of salt
Timothy Daly picked up a haiku off a sidewalk in Senigallia, Italy.
the way footsteps flirt… high heels
Preeti Sharma twirled an umbrella in Delhi, India. Barrie Levine resides in the historic town of Wenham, Massachusetts.
the peafowl pair
splattering
colors of rain
* * *
village bazaar
a small girl lost
in swirling colors
At Kitano Tenmangu shrine in Kyoto, Sagano smiled as a foreigner squeezed past a line of congested shops selling banana crepes, matcha soft ice cream and peach soda floats.
shrine bazaar
fruit tree in his rucksack
dream carrier
Chin lost her hat, but caught a haiku that brings to mind Basho’s broad-brimmed conical straw kasa with a chin strap made of braided rattan for windy days.
casting seeds
in the coriander patch
a straw hat flies
Ivan Georgiev drew this line in the sand about newly enacted German military service laws for young men.
conscription--eating the seed corn
David Cox trudged up one of “the somewhat steep pathways at Beijing’s Summer Palace which are strewn with confetti” and pink petals. Junko Saeki negotiated with somewhat deceptive-looking petals in Tokyo.
strewn along the path
all the tourists
snapping cherry blossoms
* * *
delusory cherry blossoms…
let’s be happy with
moderately happy
Florian Munteanu fired a shotgun blast at the crack of dawn in Bucharest, Romania.
confetti...
a bag full of duck
and cherry blooms
Praying for longevity, Bose’s family bent their heads in unison at the dinner table.
Grandpa’s curved back
enjoying shrimp and lobsters
99th birthday
Grabowska celebrated conditionally, a hypothetical event, in Warsaw, Poland.
the lark’s song--
we would be celebrating
the 100th birthday this year
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The next issue of the Asahi Haikuist Network appears May 29. Readers are invited to compose haiku related to convenience stores. Send haiku on a postcard to David McMurray at the International University of Kagoshima, Sakanoue 8-34-1, Kagoshima, 891-0197, Japan, or e-mail to (mcmurray@fka.att.ne.jp).
* * *
David McMurray has been writing the Asahi Haikuist Network column since April 1995, first for the Asahi Evening News. He is on the editorial board of the Red Moon Anthology of English-Language Haiku, columnist for the Haiku International Association, and is editor of Teaching Assistance, a column in The Language Teacher of the Japan Association for Language Teaching (JALT).
McMurray is professor of intercultural studies at The International University of Kagoshima where he lectures on international haiku. At the Graduate School he supervises students who research haiku. He is a correspondent school teacher of Haiku in English for the Asahi Culture Center in Tokyo.
McMurray judges haiku contests organized by The International University of Kagoshima, Ito En Oi Ocha, Asahi Culture Center, Matsuyama City, Polish Haiku Association, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Seinan Jo Gakuin University, and Only One Tree.
McMurray’s award-winning books include: “Teaching and Learning Haiku in English” (2022); “Only One Tree Haiku, Music & Metaphor” (2015); “Canada Project Collected Essays & Poems” Vols. 1-8 (2013); and “Haiku in English as a Japanese Language” (2003).
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