Buoyant blog of septuagenarian (78) Kanadian poet and haikuist Chris Faiers/cricket. People's Poetry in the tradition of Milton Acorn, haiku/haibun, progressive politikal rants, engaged Buddhism and meditation, revitalizing of Callaghan's Rapids Conservation Area, memories of ZenRiver Gardens and Purdy Country LitFests (PurdyFests), events literary and politikal, and pics, amid swirling currents of earth magick and shamanism. Read in 119 countries last week - 43,329 readers in September.
The first thing I see on waking is Orion, bright against the still dark of the morning sky – and that sliver of a pinned-on moon, too bright to be real, but there it is. But the chill in the air. How is it that it feels cold when the temperature says it’s not? It is all so suddenly, thoroughly, autumnal - it is as if the rug was just pulled, yanked, flipped, and the season changed.
But this has been, I suppose, a year of the rug being pulled. And now the El Nino warnings –not just El Nino, but a super El Nino, fed and amplified by climate change. Extremes, unpredictability. Most climate watchers have had the good sense to stop saying unprecedented, because really, the very notion of precedent must be extinct. Such a perpetual sense of instability, unmooredness. Yes, aren’t we all just adrift.
But my morning routines usually serve to keep me grounded. The same time, the same path. Reliable. But this past week, things haven’t been quite what I anticipated. At first, it seemed chilly, but the tomatoes are still green, pumpkins the same. Surely there is more summer to come. Then it seemed too warm for the dark brown of the joe-pye weed, and for the fireweed to have been drained, left with only with faded red leaves.
I search for my morning regulars, raven, sometimes even fox, can’t find them, not in my mind’s eye, not on the land itself. Things seem untrustworthy. How to tell, these days, between normal and abnormal, between business as usual and catastrophe?
Instead, there’s a fisher and a few blue jays. Fishers are peculiar, they move strangely, that slow sidewise gallop. How can a gallop be slow? And blue jays, so many voices, they have, such a range, everything from cooing to sonar. What are they saying, to each other, to me? Are their many voices meant to confuse? What to make of all of this?
harbinger of danger; harbinger of doom; harbinger of spring //
I am wondering, and then, at the bottom of the road, like an apparition – did it look like this the day before? - a blazing beauty, a Manitoba Maple full bore in her autumn colours when all around her is green. She is lite up like a fire, like all those fires, all those fires everywhere this summer…
North-western Ontario
Siberia
Manitoba
Algeria
Italy
Chile
Argentia
Spain
Ireland
British Columbia
Australia
Quebec
Brazil
The Balkans
Greece
Northwest Territories
Scotland
And the over 53,000 wildfires that have burnt across the United States so far
Was this small tree chastising me, sending a signal perhaps? But in these days of doom and beacons and warnings, our oracles seem diminished by the barrage. We can’t discern or understand the message for all of the chatter.
But maybe that’s not it at all. Maybe, probably, this is just a garden, just a landscape, a cast of creatures, all trying their best to get on with the business of survival. Of preparing for winter. They do not have the time, nor likely the interest, in acting as warning signs for the most selfish and belligerent of all species.
It seems that if there ever were any harbingers of doom, they must surely have been exhausted by the futility of it all. Fed up. Worn out.
And really, what is the point in a head’s up from a harbinger of doom? The doom is already here, we’re standing it in, feeling its heat, seeing its tides rising. And all the while as it stalks up and down our city streets and through our fields of grain, laps up around our doorsteps and takes down our mountainsides, we dither on, musing whether this may or may not be the right time for more pipelines, for another parcel from Amazon, for another AI data centre.
Doom must be both delighted and, deep down inside, thoroughly disappointed - such unworthy opponents we’ve turned out to be.
So, what now, now that we find ourselves right in the thick of it? Cheek by jowl with doom? How to cope?
Well, I have been on the lookout for sound advice. This is my round-up of the best I’ve found:
Be better neighbours. Pay attention. Learn more and be stronger. Get off our fucking phones. Plan ahead. Stock up. Give more, if you are able, to food banks and shelters and emergency aid. And don’t put up with any divisive bullshit – someone isn’t on board, wants to fawn over bitumen or tech bros or nonsense like pitting and prioritizing economics over/against ecological preservation, that argues that immigrants, or women, or trans folk or protesters are a threat - let’s not waste our time, better to step over them, keep moving towards constructive action.
Because there is work to be done.
And beneath these same morning stars, at other times and other places, other folks have stared down doom. It’s our turn now.
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a new short Youtube nature clip just arrived from my mysterious friend Billy Hill. He gets incredible footage with trail cams. This one is a doe nature training with her three 'late season' fawns. If the yankee craziness is wearing you down, take a breather:
And it will rank as one of the most important days in this country’s history along side the repatriation of the Constitution and the declaration of Dominion Status in 1867.
In our conversation, he describes how Canada is dramatically moving to untangle itself from American control — even in the face of intimidation and threat.
“Canada is saying no to Donald Trump’s America. Canada is the country that will take the most punishment in the world from this. We know America better than anyone else. For us to say no sends a message to the world that it is possible to say no to Trump’s America.”
Marche, who spent ten years writing for Esquire, is the author of The Next Civil War about the dangerous state of the collapsing American empire.
“The drive for sovereignty is totally unprecedented in the history of this country is being enacted in the military, in trade, economic policy and in the world of tech. Canada is winning. We didn’t expect this, but this is what we are seeing.”
But he also warns about the risk of sharing an unguarded border with an increasingly unstable and disintegrating world empire.
I encourage you to pour yourself a cup of coffee and listen. Marche offers an insightful perspective about what is happening in Canada and why this matters.
Canada is at a crossroads in its history. The road ahead will be rough.
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The haikuist used the literary technique of apostrophe to conjure Sano Tsunehiko (1834-1906), founder of a religious sect of priests who officiate at ceremonies such as weddings, festivals and the sale of fortune-telling papers. It seemed like yesterday to Helga Stania, when she “studied in Bonn and met the barrel organ player” on her way to market. Angela Giordano played in Avigliano, Italy.
ballads from the barrel organ… I was so young
* * *
a barrel organ-- we dance and sing the tarantella
A lover gently bypassed Dorota Kasparewicz’s emotional walls in Szczecin, Poland. Ugur Olgar was tempted to go skinny-dipping like a naturist in the Goksu River that flows to the Mediterranean Sea. AJ Johnson admired wildflowers in Stephens City, Virginia. Hoping to join in the fun, Daniela Misso peered into undine-filled Vera River that meanders through shade trees in Assergi, Italy.
evening of love-- her fingertips lightly touch the chambers of my heart
* * *
river dancing a barefoot ripple touches the bank
* * *
dry pond the banks brim with daisies
* * *
Laughter… on the water’s surface tiny bubbles
At a recording studio in Ankara, Turkey, Guliz Mutlu explored the meaning of not being. In a soulful mood, Minko Tanev reflected in Sofia, Bulgaria.
blue sky tea is poured jazzman laughing in the booth why-not-ness in bloom
* * *
midnight blues silhouettes in love dance on walls
Sagano ascended a steep staircase leading to the Shinto god of water, enshrined since ancient times in Kyoto. John Stephens clambered up a stone staircase to reach a sanctuary.
wet stone steps mountain water spirits pray Kifune shrine
* * *
after school-- pony tails bounce up the steps of Ise Grand Shrine
John Zheng in Itta Betta, Mississippi, slashed three words with virgules to make a scene happen all at once. The placement of the word light serves the double function of noun and adjective.
spring/light/breeze brushes across bluebells
In Zagreb, Croatia, Amir Kapetanovic extinguished the lights when day turned into night. Nicoletta Ignatti was silenced by soft, steady hissing musical sounds in Castellana Grotte, Italy.
through a dark grove… firefly trails in a clash quench the dusk
* * *
white noise water among the rocks… night song
Embracing silence between words connotes the Japanese concept of pausing (ma); for Giuliana Ravaglia it meant hesitating all night long in Bologna, Italy.
yet it remains an empty space between the words
* * *
night of waiting… in the fading dawn the harsh rhythm of illusions
Tejendra Sherchan’s courtyard in Kathmandu, Nepal, was covered in fragrant blossoms that open for just one night.
her fertility night jasmines fall all night
Hungry for a quick bite in Kuching, Malaysia, the first place that came to Christina Chin’s mind was a sushi bar. Archie G. Carlos walked into a snack bar, “where an old man comments on my Guernica t-shirt. And soon the stories come flowing.”
the bar goes round and round sushi rolls
* * *
full moon stuffed with old Basque tales over pintxos
In Santa Fe, New Mexico, Matt Surprise introduced himself by describing humanity. Olivier-Gabriel Humbert paused between sips at a party in Les Avenieres Veyrins-Thuellin, France.
At times destructive Resilient but sometimes soar Are we not beetles
* * *
cocktails with friends-- a tiny water nymph clings to my straw
Sagano went to the theater to watch a musical. Robert Kania entered an opera house in Warsaw, Poland.
Shibuya crowd sits up straight on opening night “At the End of the Day”
* * *
Song to the Moon I see a water nymph at the opera
Sitting cheek by jowl, Tuyet Van Do spilled red wine in Melbourne, Australia. Head cocked to one side, Nash described tonight’s last quarter moon phase. Boryana Boteva was lulled to sleep in Sofia, Bulgaria.
starry night a bottle of shiraz overflows our hearts
* * *
half moon at a jaunty angle-- I’m tipsy too
* * *
wheat harvest merging with the summer heat maidens’ songs
Slobodan Pupovac slept comfortably on a feather pillow in Zagreb, Croatia.
starry sky in the stork’s nest the moon rests
Living in seismically calm Belgrade, Serbia, Divna Vuksanovic imagined spending an evening on the active Ring of Fire in Sakurajima, Kagoshima Prefecture. Visiting from Ochten, the Netherlands, S.T. Hills noticed fruit offerings alongside coins on a haiku-engraved stone monument.
Summer night lava from the volcano melting stars
* * *
memorial shrine monkey observes banana samurai’s tribute
Joanna Ashwell posed like a ballerina in Barnard Castle, England. Mutlu danced up a sweat.
rain or shine these tiptoes dance anywhere
* * *
silver gardenia dancing on the lake hot season gleams
Submerged, Vasile Moldovan observed this surreal movement in Bucharest, Romania.
waterfall flowing from the depths toward the surface... spirit of the waters
Lori Kiefer was comforted by twinkling string lights in London, England. A beetle on Laurinda Lind’s computer in Sackets Harbor, New York, “seemed like he kept trying to crawl under the plastic display bezel.” Nani Mariani was stumped in Melbourne, Australia.
campsite... from mum’s tent to ours fairy lights
* * *
laptop screen not that kind of window… beetle keeps trying
* * *
child’s question why do beetles buzz? i opened Google
Stephen J. DeGuire placed a bet in Los Angeles, California. James Penha interpreted the meaning of a faint ticking sound from inside a stand of timber in Bali, Indonesia.
mandibles or horns win the day beetle sumo
* * *
deathwatch beetles drum wood with their heads to woo-- not to augur doom
Urszula Marciniak smiled knowingly at a love quadrangle in Lodz, Poland. Stoianka Boianova heard love calling in Sofia, Bulgaria. Jessica Allyson quickly put away her gardening tools in Ottawa, Ontario. “From a fiery hot Italy,” Ravaglia contrasted reality with illusion.
two stag beetles fighting the third male embracing the female
* * *
golden beetle in the heart of a rose a buzzing flower
* * *
rolls of thunder the beetles burrow into the new roses
* * *
champagne and roses-- in the slow air his hands of salt
Picking “every day a rose for her,” Zdenka Mlinar described romance in Zagreb, Croatia. Gordana Vlasic feigned doubt in Oroslavje, Croatia. Mauro Battini’s garden lay bare in Santa Croce sull’Arno, Italy.
just the coast the sea and the two of them the dolphin dance
* * *
romance-- is a rose enough
* * *
on the first date twenty-five red roses picked in vain
Charlie Smith and his best friend Wendy walked at dusk in drought-stricken Raleigh, North Carolina. Mutlu beheld a magnificent moonrise. Jacek Margolak’s mouth was parched with stardust in Kielce, Poland. Lilia Racheva sparkled last night in Rousse, Bulgaria.
brutal heat fireflies, dogs, and people wait late moonrise
* * *
stag beetle antlers of midnight lifting the moon
* * *
empty well the bucket returns full of stars
* * *
blue-green beetle wings, sparkle on old jewelry a new beginning
Aching in Ajax, Ontario, Chen-ou Liu aligned his back toward the glow of the Milky Way and began rolling. Timothy Daly strolled through Fountainebleau, France. Melissa Dennison prefers dancers to chiropractors in Bradford, England.
stiff joints again... the upturned dung beetle flailing its legs
* * *
my only real friends in that forest near Paris... the dung beetles
* * *
flamenco-- the click beetle’s curved spine
Subhash Roy Choudhury watched Cockroach People’s Party demonstrators late at night near an 18th-century astronomical observatory in New Delhi, India. On her toes in Newcastle, Australia, Jennifer Smyth-Davey expressed the feeling of “regret that is always part of combat--Pyrrhic victory.” Tony Williams was suddenly “surrounded en masse” in Glasgow, Scotland.
Jantar Mantar, 3 am-- cockroach tests the darkness and finds a way through
* * *
Quick-witted cockroach dodging my relentless shoe crunch but no winners
* * *
dozens of beetles on the forest floor… I stand on only one
Amir Kapetanovic admired flowers at the Institute of Croatian Language in Zagreb, Croatia.
stifling summer-- white geraniums freezing the pupils
Elizabeth Moura listened to the words of American folk artist Goebel Reeves in East Taunton, Massachusetts.
Hobo’s lullaby crickets in the freight yard remind him of home
Ignatti listened to a violin-like evening vigil. Hifsa Ashraf stood watch in Rawalpindi, Pakistan.
armor laid aside-- the cricket songs smell of rust
* * *
candlelight vigil flicker in the eyes blue flames
In Phoenix, Arizona, John Daleiden whispered “See Saw Margery Daw, Johnny shall have a new master.” A variant alludes to mythical mischievous fairies of British folklore: “Sold her bed and lay on the straw; Sold her bed and lay upon hay; and pixie came and carried her away.” Damir Damir tried to hold on a little longer in Kotor, Montenegro.
Oh, the games world leaders play-- see-saw Marjorie Daw
* * *
a few more hours of summer: the sea is tired, the sea is salty
“Honestly speaking,” admitted Ashoka Weerakkody, “quiet moments and unadulterated traditional Sri Lankan singing voices” are captivating. The haikuist is neither a fan of electronically produced sounds nor noisy streets in Colombo. High-pitched falsetto notes were originally perceived by Italian opera purists to be artificial. In Toronto, Ontario, Marshall Hryciuk listened until “al niente.”
fake notes blended with genuine silence synthesized music
* * *
wavering cardinal song fades into false dawn
Listening to folk music in Northern Luzon, Philippines, Anthony Q. Rabang commemorated the 40th anniversary of a peaceful uprising that ended a dictatorship.
moon almost full cathedral bell tolls people power
Reading “The Thousand and One Nights” stories, Sagano learned that guests were often executed because of a king’s misuse of power and traps set by a genie.
they did guests proud those who disappeared Arabian Nights
Envisaged as an Arabian nights story in a Western world setting, Daleiden’s haiku conjures “Salome, Where She Danced,” a 1945 film about a town named after a dance-hall performer who entranced outlaws.
heat distorted the mesquite dance-- Salome
Mike Fainzilber interpreted a dream, considered consequences and will meditate before Rosh Hashanah, which falls this year on Sept. 11 in Tel Aviv, Israel.
the hostage’s wife their nightly appointment her first dream
* * *
all his vows a ring of bright water
* * *
all the crannies in the Wall his unread confession
Isabella Kramer danced for joy in Nienhagen, Germany. Lakshmi Iyer spun around until she got dizzy in Kerala, India
round and round the puppy jumps leaves tumble
* * *
buzzzzz… our granddaughter runs around the house
At the end of a long day, Joseph Elliott turned out the office lights in Kingston, Ontario. Morgan Ophir imagined the thoughts of a Tokyoite who didn’t get home last night.
beaver moon all the work I didn’t notice
* * *
metro station floor salaryman dreams of his first peach
Seyed Edris Hosseini prepared for bed in Shiraz, Iran. Ophir turned off a reading lamp in Sydney, Australia.
midnight toothbrushing on the mirror-- a small beetle
* * *
separate bedrooms a soft peach has become a stone
Ivan Georgiev passed gas in Gottingen, Germany.
her apology-- gas bubbles are found even in gemstones
Shall we dance at http://www.asahi.com/ajw/special/haiku/. The next issue of the Asahi Haikuist Network appears Sept. 18. Readers are invited to write a haiku using caesura punctuation to silence a moment in autumn, 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
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).
Poetry for Lake Whatchamacallit
, here, 
(Illustration by Mitsuaki Kojima)
