Photo/Illutration (Illustration by Mitsuaki Kojima)

High-pitched calls...swans hurrying back from tundra
--Yutaka Kitajima (Joetsu, Niigata Prefecture)

* * *

car license plates
from north and south--
convenience store parking
--Murasaki Sagano (Tokyo)

* * *

rest-stop coffee
it may be lukewarm
but it’s got caffeine
--Barrie Levine (Wenham, Massachusetts)

* * *

a burger stop
sparrows sing
hoping for fries
--Sherri J. Moye-Dombrosky (Liberty, South Carolina)

* * *

empty parking lot
the lingering warmth
where his car once stood
--Fatma Zohra Habis (Algiers, Algeria)

* * *

the birds flew away
from the bottom of the drawer
McDonald’s figurines
--Mariola Grabowska (Warsaw, Poland)

* * *

the black raven
takes off her wings again
a good little girl
--Barbara Rybak (Zawiercie, Poland)

* * *

sudden overcast
a blackbird pecking
a shadow
--Tim Dwyer (Bangor, Northern Ireland)

* * *

shared garden--
in the service charge
overgrown weeds
--Lori Kiefer (London, England)

* * *

the door latch shut
holding on to the keys
one last time
--Shalini Gupta (Delhi, India)

------------------------------
FROM THE NOTEBOOK
------------------------------

bolt of fall
lightning--geese pause
their conversation
--Laurinda Lind (Sackets Harbor, New York)

The haikuist listened to what Canadian geese had to say about newly named Lake America. David Watts sorted out international relations in San Francisco, California, not far from Google Maps headquarters. Jerome Berglund put things on hold, realizing that changing names and shapes on a map influences how the world is understood.

diplomacy
separate countries
in the map box

* * *

gulf of america
the garage sale indefinite
it appears

Having settled in Toronto, Ontario, Chris Faiers feels an uneasy distance from where he was raised in America. Shannon Wallace’s haiku tactfully describes the vibe of a mother-daughter relationship in Ontario, Canada. Honey Novick loves to be caressed on the Canadian side of Lake Ontario.

across this ocean of
Lake Ontario--
a now foreign land

* * *

somber
mom dropped peaches
cut off the bruises

* * *

greet me at the shore
to be comforted by your power
rocking waves massage

Mona Bedi dreamily imagined a life with no countries, nothing to kill or die for. Marshall Hryciuk daydreamed of checkered purple bells and orange butterflies in Toronto, Ontario.

old battlefield--
a butterfly flit across
the border fence

* * *

eyes closed
vines hang
in patterns of fritillaries

Sagano marveled at the massive migration of Australian blue tigers that swarmed southbound this month. Helga Stania froze at the sight of a breathtakingly beautiful scarlet tiger moth. Mauro Battini made the sign of the cross at Santa Croce, in Pisa, Italy. A rustling sound made Christina Chin stop in her tracks in tropical Sarawak, Borneo.

blue wings of
butterflies
animated world

* * *

freezing--a butterfly flashes its red hindwings

* * *

insects everywhere…
on the soldier’s body
a red butterfly

* * *

jungle terrain
no one in sight
could it be a tiger

Like clockwork each autumn, Chen-ou Liu watched as trees full of butterflies lifted off from Ajax on the Canadian side of Lake Ontario.

a child’s stare
behind barbed wire--
golden arches

When millions of monarch butterflies take off at once, they produce a rustling sound as loud as Niagara Falls. Cornelia Rossberg headed home. The migrants are currently navigating from Canada, across Lake America into the United States and onwards to western Mexico. Carl Brennan admonished himself when they passed by North Syracuse, New York. Giuliana Ravaglia’s haiku compared unstoppable forces.

rumbling thunder
astonished looks up to the sky
sound of taiko drums

* * *

Butterfly wings
I dismembered as a boy
the lawn’s healthy glow

* * *

ideas are butterflies
you can’t take their wings away--
they are mothers’ voices

Searching the skies overhead Lapeer, Michigan, Dorna Hainds asked where all the butterflies had gone.

day moon
the butterfly far from
clouds

Milkweed plants are a good spot to look for butterfly eggs, caterpillars and chrysalises. John Richard Stephens followed their flight path through Maui, Hawaii.

garden afternoon--
butterflies flutter by
an empty bench

As soon as the distinctively patterned orange and black migrants arrive in Mexico, they alight on a high-altitude Oyamel fir forest patch. Anne Marie McHarg gave the spectacular sight all As.

A thousand shades
A host of butterflies scatter
A whirlwind of thoughts

Covering entire trees, they settle down to hibernate until spring. Feeling sleepy on a spring afternoon in Osaka, Teiichi Suzuki craved a sugar boost. Gordana Vlasic gripped a railing in Oroslavje, Croatia.

an afternoon slump...
a first butterfly frolics
canola flower

* * *

Tomorrow is a new day
the butterfly from my balcony
isn’t coming back

Masumi Orihara listened to an ornithologist who interpreted a songbird’s chirps as meaning “come, let’s fly together.” Erin Castaldi traveled a little farther at midday in Mays Landing, New Jersey.　 Humans migrate, too, and go walkabout, noted Martina Matijevic in Vidovci, Croatia. Rather than drinking one for the road, Biswajit Mishra prudently waited until he got home to Calgary, Alberta.

bird linguist
shares in their truths
titmouse family

* * *

somewhere new
for lunch
migrating grosbeak

* * *

migrating bird--
grandad’s slippers
on the front steps

* * *

nightcap--
the migrating geese make
a pitstop

Alexander Groth empathized with war migrants in Berlin, Germany. Patrick Sweeney’s two lines described the feeling of never having lived in peacetime.

bird migration
from war
back into war

* * *

yearling crows are glad
to be in this war-torn world

Haiku has migrated far from its Japanese niche to become a global literary phenomenon practiced by haikuists everywhere. Robert Hirschfield is a journalist in New York. Mel Goldberg watched lines form in Ajijic, Mexico. Symbolizing protection in English folklore, Robin Rich handwove a circular wreath in Brighton, England.

Indian family
on train to Chile
silence salts an egg

* * *

refugees looking
for a place to rest
raindrops

* * *

hazel branch
shaped like a crown
illegal alien

Perhaps irked by residents who snitch on employers hiring undocumented foreign nationals getting cash rewards from the Ibaraki Prefectural government, Soumya Mukherjee suggested that “the concepts of nations and foreignness have always seemed to be an illusion.”

gaijin
one
to the other

A wandering tomcat made himself at home on Ivan Georgiev’s porch in Gottingen, Germany.　 Jeremy Haworth spent countless sunny days on the garden patio in Dublin, Ireland.

a chilly morning
on my mother’s garden chair--
unacquainted cat

* * *

a fresh hole
in the striped deckchair
first autumn rain

Antonio Mangiameli raised his head in Lentini, Italy. Stoianka Boianova heard rustling on a leaf-strewn path in Sofia, Bulgaria. In Accra, Ghana, Justice Joseph Prah watched the city roll up the sidewalks.

wheat field
the scarecrow
watches the sky

* * *

toads jump
in the autumn evening--
dry leaves

* * *

beetles...
resting their dung for a night
streeters

James Penha in Bali, Indonesia, and Tracy Davidson in Warwickshire, England, respectively, got through rainy days.

I am the pilgrim
finding sanctuary
in a raincoat

* * *

forever hopeful
a floppy sunhat
squashed under my rain hood

Hifsa Ashraf held on tight in Rawalpindi, Pakistan.

last boarding call
the silence we share
in one hug

* * *

autumn drizzle
the lingering warmth
of his hugs

Slavica Mileva wrote goodbye in Skopje, North Macedonia. After the farewell, Sagano looked down forlornly onto an interior central courtyard in Toledo, Spain.

one tear
spells out your name
farewell

* * *

swallows
leave for the south
El Greco’s balcony

C.X. Turner left something behind.

homeward bound
one tent peg
still in the sand

Maxianne Berger wrote a raincheck in Outremont, Quebec.

added cost
of travel insurance
purse umbrella

Julie Ann Lebitania packed up in Sorsogon, Philippines.

ceramics
wrapped in bubbles
move-out day

Writing from Lafayette, Louisiana, Al W. Gallia recalled when horse-pulled wagons headed West.

rainswept prairie...
by the old wagon trace
an unmarked grave

John Hamley reminisced about a road trip from Canada to the United States, where he careened his Morris Garage roadster into a motel parking lot. The engine sputtered and hissed a cloud of steam into the twilight air, leaving him sitting in the light of a neon sign buzzing overhead. Sandip Chauhan didn’t stay for long in Great Falls, Virginia.

Six bucks a night
at Motel Six--
MGA

* * *

mini-mart
that box of brightness
we circle and leave

During the inhospitable summer months, the town of Quartzsite, Arizona, appeared to be little more than a gas station and fast-food stopover halfway between Los Angeles and Phoenix. Tired from driving, Pitt Buerken’s better half began “sharing burgers with a dog.” Caleb Epps parked.　 Shalini Gupta wrote a haiku to say goodbye in Delhi, India. Turner knew the moment the “holiday truly came to an end.”

truck stop
fast food with TV
and country music

* * *

truck stop midnight
the shower key
warm from his hand

* * *

the door latch shut
holding on to the keys
one last time

* * *

cottage key
the warmth
leaves my hand

Sagano never got it back.

spare room key
asked him to return
summer’s end

Q-town, as it is called by the tens of thousands of retirees, nomads and seasonal workers who winter there, is located near a stretch of interstate highway that passes through the northern reaches of the Sonoran Desert. When his water ran out on a hike, John Daleiden “began to see things that were not real.”

desert shrubs
march toward my destruction
windmills of the mind

Mariola Grabowska marveled how teenagers enjoyed carefree nomadic lifestyles in Warsaw, Poland. Dejan Pavlinovic boarded a car ferry on his way to Cres Island, Croatia. Mircea Moldovan recited a line from an incantation in Letca, Romania.

mom’s youth
her hitchhiking trips
for a single smile

* * *

hitchhiker--
a spider
on the side mirror

* * *

hitchhiker’s chant--splashes on the hot asphalt

Jennifer Gurney penciled this haiku on the back of a pay envelope at a red light in Broomfield, Colorado.

riding in the space behind the backseat
of Uncle Alan’s black bug
my cousin, my brother and I

At this autumnal time of year, cyclists, bikers, recreational vehicle drivers and truckers head for Q-town intending to camp there as a community. Leon Tefft hiked alone through a South Carolina State Park. Mike Fainzilber kept up the chase. Boryana Boteva pointed toward a southerly compass direction. Rich zipped up his windbreaker. Mark Meyer boarded a bus on Mercer Island, Washington.

lonesome trail…
perhaps if I answer
the wind

* * *

the wind
still chasing
your footsteps

* * *

her smile...
as if I’m a stranger
asking for the route

* * *

wave goodbye
the summer turns
to a cooler tide

* * *

parts unknown--
America departs
on a Greyhound bus

The smell of rain-soaked apples can still lead Marion Clarke home to Warrenpoint, North Ireland. Sweeney was welcomed back.

orchard mist tasting my way back

* * *

long journey home,
offered a beer
and my father’s chair

                                                                ~.  ~.  ~.  ~ 

Thanks David,

Always a treat to get a new Asahi Network! Both Honey Novick and and John Hamley were regulars at the annual Purdy Country Litfests I organized for eight years at my 
Zenriver Gardens retreat. I didn't know John was also an MGA fan in his youth. I had a 1960 MGA I painted powder blue and rolled and pleated the interior in black leather. Reversed the rims and put about 10 layers of chrome paint on them. It was a showstopper car and I used to dream I still owned it until maybe a decade ago.  

 

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It is skive Friday at http://www.asahi.com/ajw/special/haiku/. The next issues of the Asahi Haikuist Network will appear Oct. 16 and 30. Readers are invited to send haiku about the fear of being watched or surveillance cameras, on a postcard to David McMurray at the International University of Kagoshima, Sakanoue 8-34-1, Kagoshima, 891-0197, Japan, or e-mail (mcmurray@fka.att.ne.jp).

* * *

haiku-mug
David McMurray

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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