Spring equinox haiku: David McMurray, Chris Faiers/cricket

           spring sun

melting children's snow fort

              tunnels

         frogs croak

      spring horniness

      April Fools Day

Chris Faiers/cricket: from my collection ZenRiver: poems & haibun, Hidden Brook Press, 2008, and elsewhere

 

ASAHI HAIKUIST NETWORK/ David McMurray

March 20, 2026 at 08:00 JST

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(Illustration by Mitsuaki Kojima)

• 

budding before spring like showing up early on your first day
--John Xavier (Burnaby, British Columbia)

* * *

vernal equinox--
meeting each other halfway
in search of peace
--Natalia Kuznetsova (Moscow, Russia)

* * *

Bombs explode
then cherry blossoms…
TV news
--Satoru Kanematsu (Nagoya)

* * *

cherry blossoms
the dream of peace
unfulfilled
--Christa Pandey (Austin, Texas)

* * *

Last day at work--
beside the cherry tree in bloom
I pause, quietly
--Sanjana Zorinc (Bjelovar, Croatia)

* * *

on the scale
of what I gave and what I got--
cherry blossoms in the wind
--Nicoletta Ignatti (Castellana Grotte, Italy)

* * *

cherry petals
your laughter drifts
through the open door
--Valincia Richard (Itta Bena, Mississippi)

* * *

spring gloaming
between cherry leaves
snapped kite strings
--Sheikha A. (Dubai, United Arab Emirates)

* * *

cloudless sky
glasses half full
of cherry blossoms
--Mark Gilbert (Nottingham, U.K.)

* * *

fish and beer
the sleepy coastal town
wide awake at a hotel
--Amoolya Kamalnath (Karnataka, India)

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

crepuscular--
in the light of the last leaves
cherry blossoms
--David Cox (Bydgoszcz, Poland)

The haikuist noticed a tree shining brightly just before the sun went down. Murasaki Sagano wrapped herself in a pink-colored wool shawl to go for an evening stroll to view blossoms in cloudy Tokyo.

cashmere stole
which warmed her shoulders
my shoulders

Round white clouds close to the moon shone like silver, while those farther away appeared as dreamy soft as Tsanka Shishkova’s pink chiffon dress.

the perfect dress
on cherry-blossom night...
retro style party

Sagano marked the spring equinox, and start of a three-day holiday, by visiting her family grave.

mountain temple bells
whichever way--flowers
the vernal equinox

Lee Nash worried in Charente, France.
so many lives
hanging in the balance--
spring equinox

Melissa Dennison sailed.

light levels on an even keel spring equinox

Slicing an apple with a kitchen knife in Lodz, Poland, Urszula Marciniak precisely debated the equality of day and night.

March is ending
we share last year’s apple
cut in half

* * *

spring equinox
no more long nights
spent reading

Chen-ou Liu tossed and turned under skylight in Ajax, Ontario.

spring equinox
half asleep, half awake
to twilit skies

Doc Sunday traveled to Nagasaki to see Shimabara Castle. During cherry blossom season, red lanterns on the castle’s 250 cherry trees illuminate the night. On his way home he witnessed a heavenly sight.

On Omura Bay
looking back at the castle--
an angel’s ladder

Isabella Kramer sketched this scene in snowy North Germany.

abandoned castle
through broken windows
a song of early spring

Gilbert visited his hometown in the south of England. Luciana Moretto visited a castle estate near Treviso, Italy.

castle keep
looking down
on the town

* * *

fickle breeze
grazing donkeys--
the peace we need

In Los Angeles, California, Stephen J. DeGuire described the lingering fear of a mirror reflection of feeling, yet not seeing, a limb that had been removed.

twelve full hours
until dark turns light
phantom pain

Arvinder Kaur checked a damaged limb in Chandigarh, India.

the prayer
of a denuded branch
approaching spring

DeGuire will be able to walk steadily again at the autumn equinox.

balancing
in March
equilux

Capota Daniela Lacramioara felt relief in Galati, Romania. Isabella Kramer in Germany and Nicoletta Ignatti in Italy, respectively, described their giddy feelings.

the vernal equinox--
finally, perfection
compulsive obsession

* * *

butterflies in the belly--
Vernal equinox’s chance
for a new dance

* * *

vernal equinox--
butterflies in the stomach
at breakfast

Tony Williams matter-of-factly ate breakfast in Glasgow, Scotland.

my toast
neither burnt, nor pale
spring equinox

An avid birder, Yutaka Kitajima described “one of the best snapshots I took this winter in Joetsu, Niigata.”

A fresh leaf
on the frozen snow...
a white-eye

Korie Beth Brown rearranged a desktop in Los Angeles.

this table
that once held Grandma’s photos
now hold mine

Boryana Boteva described a separation in Sofia, Bulgaria.

their property
divided in two
spring equinox

Marie Derley locked up her love and threw away the key in Ath, Belgium. Giuliana Ravaglia “no longer waits for the postman” in Bologna, Italy. Julie Ann Lebitania reread a self-help magazine about embracing imperfection in Sorsogon, Philippines.

keepsake
his first I love you
on a key ring

* * *

faded handwriting--
marriage proposal
on a postcard

* * *

wrinkled blossoms
fragments from last spring
tucked between pages

Angela Giordano discovered the hidden beauty of a new friend in Avigliano, Italy.

the soft r
of the French friend--
Paris spring

Touring Rheingau, Germany, Rita Rosen’s riverboat hesitated for a while, allowing nosy swans to approach. After getting her feet wet, Mihaela Babusanu cozied up in Bacau, Romania.

early spring
swans already
in pairs on the Rhein

* * *

Valentine’s Day--
on the warm radiator
our paired socks

White Day celebrations on March 14 gave Mariola Grabowska another chance to pair up in Warsaw, Poland.

last Valentines Day--
all the socks in my drawer
mismatched

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The next issues of the Asahi Haikuist Network appear April 3 and 17. Readers are invited to send haiku about illusions or delusions 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).

Year of the Fire Horse haiku: David McMurray/Asahi Haikuist Network

Screaming neigh!

in pre-dawn terror

we make love 

My English girlfriend Marion and I hitchhiked to the Isle of Wight in the early 1970s. We camped for a night in the mystical New Forest. In the next field . . .    Chris/cricket : from my 1986 collection with Aya Press, Foot Through the Ceiling (it received the 1987 Milton Acorn People's Poetry Medal)

  

ASAHI HAIKUIST NETWORK/ David McMurray

February 20, 2026 at 08:00 JST

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(Illustration by Mitsuaki Kojima)

• 

New Year’s dawn--the sound of horses’ hooves in my head
--Marek Printer (Kielce, Poland)

* * *

Lunar New Year
the horse runs away
from the snake
--Ed Bremson (Raleigh, North Carolina)

* * *

New Year’s view:
silvery white sacred peaks
in the distance
--Satoru Kanematsu (Nagoya)

* * *

New Year sun
across the river
drinking Palomino
--Dorna Hainds (Lapeer, Michigan)

* * *

solstice mist
somewhere on the farm
a horse nickers
--Zahra Mughis (Lahore, Pakistan)

* * *

anxious land--
frightened horses whinny
before an earthquake
--Stoianka Boianova (Sofia, Bulgaria)

* * *

wrong forecast
19 cm more than expected--
horse whinnies
--Shannon Wallace (Mississauga, Ontario)

* * *

rocking horse
before curiosity shop
mint condition
--Jerome Berglund (New Orleans, Louisiana)

* * *

the golden horses
of the merry-go-round
riderless in winter drizzle
--Mark Valentine (Skipton, England)

* * *

aged workhorse
tries to munch
frosted grass
--Noel King (Tralee, Ireland)

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

Girls in spring clothes
surround the paddock
year of the horse
--Yoriko Tashiro (Kagoshima)

The haikuist said she tested her “luck at the Kyoto Racecourse on the fourth day of the new year.” In today’s column, haikuists mark the turnover of zodiac signs for the Lunar New Year. Helen Buckingham was glad so see off the old year in Somerset, England.

Tail of the Snake
a pattern too dark
to fathom

Jiro Oba cruised past midnight on a boat trip in Kawasaki. And just like that, Chen-ou Liu witnessed the incoming lunar year begin in Ajax, Ontario. Christina Chin’s new year unfolded in Kuching, Borneo.

river runs
through the sands of time
last year and this year

* * *

the glow
of a good-luck crystal
first sunrise

* * *

paper dragon
lantern unfolds
a horse

The zodiac sign of horses on fire symbolizes a divine power that protects its worshippers. Charging steeds pulled chariots of fire in the biblical story of the prophet Elijah’s ascent into heaven. Pegah Rahmati Nezhad dreamt of riding a speedy Akhal-Teke horse breed famous for its golden metallic sheen in Tehran, Iran. In Lahore, Pakistan, Zahra Mughis squeezed her legs and pushed back deep in the saddle.

2026
horses galloping on
snake’s shed skin

* * *

rising wind
we lean in
for the final sprint

Geraldine Sinyuy felt dragon-slayer heat in Cameroon.

long summer dragon
flies clip their wings wild
announcing the heat

Robin Rich’s phone recharged in Brighton, England.

horse year day
social media flurry
overheating phone

Member of the Southern California Haiku Study Group, Susan Rogers witnessed an electrifying sunrise in Los Angeles. Marilyn Humbert was rewarded for closely watching a brilliantly lit night sky over Sydney, Australia.

thunder and white fire
rising in the eastern sky
the storm god gallops

* * *

fire horse
galloping within
a comet’s wake

Rob Scott shouted and waved his umbrella in Melbourne, Australia.

distant thunder--
horses scramble
into the home straight

Shannon Wallace is wary of karoshi in Mississauga, Ontario.

black beauty racing
in the dead of night
death from overworking

Feeling blue, Pippa Phillips followed this line of thought in Greensboro, North Carolina.

cold rain a procession of blue horses

Guliz Mutlu bemoaned the equine workers that hauled coal through narrow dark tunnels until the turn of the century in Ankara, Turkey.

industrial ponies
smokestacks breathing darkness
sky turns amber

Yutaka Kitajima conjured up the hardworking horse named Boxer in George Orwell’s “Animal Farm” penned in 1945. The poor old horse weakened and ended up being sold to a knacker for disposal at a glue factory.

Fatal overwork
under lawless conditions...
cold ashes to rest

Carl Brennan used to wear a boxing robe in North Syracuse, New York.

Fight night ended...
yet behind my closed eyes
ring girls on parade

Nicoletta Ignatti in Castellana Grotte, Italy, and Natalia Kuznetsova in Moscow, Russia, respectively, started their days feeling exhausted.

the wind in the eyes
of galloping horses--
New Year’s Eve dream

* * *

marathon runners--
awed and exhausted
just watching them

Sanjana Zorinc rocked back and forth in Bjelovar, Croatia.

New Year’s morning--
the red wooden rocking horse
swaying

On visit to Sousse, Tunisia, David Cox was inspired by Kahlil Gibran’s poetry.

the new sun
threshing the dune’s grains and so,
I thresh my words

Slanting sunrays from a beautiful, long winter sunset lit Francoise Maurice’s path toward the finish line in Draguignan, France.

running a marathon--
my shadow runs
across the wheat fields

Timing is everything in poetry. Consider the meaning of Yosa Buson’s (1716-1783) starting verse, kogarashi ya hitato tsumazuku modori-uma. Could it be that he saw a huffing and puffing and blowing breath of wind kneel down before a tired packhorse? The master poet had the artistic ability to see something special in the ordinary.

a cold winter wind--
as it stumbles suddenly
the returning horse

Member of a haiku group in Montreal, Quebec, Rita Pomade said she recalled having felt trapped in household duties as she looked out the window and “saw several horses in the pasture exhibiting the freedom I was longing for.”

wild mustangs
at play
my clothes tumble dry

Margaret Ponting sketched a familiar scene at a dairy farm in Labertouche, Australia.

old blue heeler by his side
a queue of cows
await evening milking

Mona Bedi entered a farm in Delhi, India. Capota Daniela Lacramioara entered retirement in Galati, Romania. Kathabela Wilson’s “dear friend who lived in the city … Pasadena, California … left to live in a country atmosphere and became a horse healer.”

winter stiffness
the slow creak
of a farm gate

* * *

like a wild horse
in a meadow--
retirement

* * *

his country life
he speaks now only
in neighs and whinnies

John Zheng visited a historic site in Itta Bena, Mississippi.

plantation tour
a pensive horse
by the fence

Florian Munteanu sacrificed his black knight for a white piece before calling out “stalemate” in Bucharest, Romania.

frosty sleigh
pulled by a piebald horse--
draw in the chess game

Samo Kreutz in Ljubljana, Slovenia, and Yoshiho Satake in Tokyo, respectively, went to the races.

finish line… 
a crowd noise split
by a feather

* * *

New Year
gleaming horses
lost my bet

James Penha remains mesmerized by the legendary horserace for the Triple Crown, “I was there at Belmont in 1973 when Big Red made our jaws drop.”

suddenly the horse
has no competition--
Secretariat

Dejan Ivanovic couldn’t sustain a winning streak in Lazarevac, Serbia.

my horse won
since then, every day
I wait I wait and I wait

Minko Tanev cheered a black horse in Sofia, Bulgaria. Gordana Vlasic held firm to long flowing hair in Oroslavje, Croatia.

nighttime feast--
horse racing
with burning torches

* * *

I hold on
the already gray mane of the black horse--
letting my hair down

Cornelia Rossberg gritted her teeth in Coburg, Germany. Xenia Tran followed the pack in Nairn, Scotland.

on the galloping horse
the dirt of the last year
flies around my ears

* * *

from old to new...
a cloud of dust
behind the horses

Sniffing around, Berglund investigated the meaning of Shakespeare’s line, “a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.”

winter rose
none in evidence but
the smell of horses

Ashoka Weerakkody headed back to Colombo, Sri Lanka.

un-stable
this cold seasonal mood
horse, a homing...

Nazarena Rampini was raised in a small village in Pogliano Milanese, Italy, where “silence prevails and every sound echoes. On the farms even in the cold, the horses graze in the pasture.”

Orion constellation--
my father’s scent
so close

A sense of humor can also help when writing haiku. Doc Sunday ate and ate in Hiroshima, but never washed the dishes.

year-end party
lots of paper plates
light buffet

* * *

shuttling back and force
sustainable global cuisines
hotel full buffet

After “too much indulgence” during the holiday season in Warwickshire, England, Tracy Davidson is “considering taking up short runs.”

after Christmas turkey
plump meaty legs
pump away

Jennifer Smyth-Davey stubbed her toe in Newcastle, Australia.

my second toe throbs
surer predictor of cold
than the weather girl

Corine Timmer kicked up her heels in Faro, Portugal.

New Year’s Day
--a spur of the moment
decision

Tracy Davidson envied sleeping bats, dormice and hedgehogs in Warwickshire, England.

deepening chill
maybe in my next life
I can hibernate

Refika Dedic’s mother reverently placed a sodium-rich mineral saltlick by a tree for deer wintering near Bihac, Bosnia and Herzegovina. Ron Scully cleared snow from his porch in Burien, Washington. Berglund swept for expected dinner guests.

winter night
salt left
in the forest

* * *

throwing salt
on the iced steps
then listening…

* * *

salt in doormat’s
embossed welcome
jerk seasoning

Ponting paused for a troupe of leaping marsupials.

the horses freeze
an invasion
of bounding kangaroos

In the Old Testament Book of Ecclesiastes, a teacher composed “A Time for Everything” that began, for everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven. Life is sustainable as long as it continually replaces death. Haikuists have a knack for recording these transitions between seasons, between death and rebirth, and the earliest sightings of fauna and flora. Liz Gibbs described a vigil in Calgary, Alberta.

death watch
only he can hear
the horsemen’s apocalyptic gallop

Vasile Moldovan is feeling his oats in Bucharest, Romania. Artur Zielinski is feeling his age in Gdynia, Poland.

Galloping horses--
the stud farm is no longer visible
from the dust cloud

* * *

New Year’s gallop
pulsing through the air
once more, I am old

Tsanka Shishkova listened to Johann Strauss’ quick-stepped music dedicated in 1848 to an Austrian field marshal who fought Napoleon Bonaparte during the long French Revolutionary Wars (1792-1815).

New Year’s concert
galloping horses come alive
in “Radetzky March”

The idea of purgatory, or being stuck between two worlds, troubled Antonio Gramsci (1891-1937) who philosophized, ‘The old world is dying, And the new world struggles to be born.” Imprisoned for his Marxist views, he penned in his notebook, “morbid phenomena of the most varied kind come to pass.” Earlier than usual this spring in Bologna, Italy, Giuliana Ravaglia fertilized newly appearing shoots from her long-living garden perennials.

peonies and rosemary--
the progress of the day
into the evening

John Richard Stephens smiled at the antics of a tomcat in Maui, Hawaii.

sparrow on a branch--
an old cat
leaps into flight

Raj K. Bose attempted drawing perfect celestial circles in Honolulu, Hawaii.

Astronomy class
doodling black holes and worm holes
munching donuts

Hifsa Ashraf looked towards heaven above Rawalpindi, Pakistan. On New Year’s morning, Murasaki Sagano reflected upon her beauty in a mirror.

new year eve--
the fireworks spark
my nebula

* * *

the first washbasin
filled with fresh well water
face and hands

In Varazdin, Croatia, Zelyko Funda experienced all sorts of emotions, some sweet, some bitter, some pats on the back and some prolonged embraces.

last day at school
a box of chocolates left
for her colleagues

* * *

departure
each hug says goodbye
in its own way

Feb. 21 is Celandine Day. William Wordsworth, an English poet who lived during the Romantic era, spotted the earliest ever appearance of the lesser celandine flower in 1815, when he composed: “that shrinks, like many more, from cold and rain; and, the first moment that the sun may shine, bright as the sun itself, ‘tis out again!”

Gareth Nurden admired an early riser in Newport, Wales.

Welsh valley breeze
daffodils spring
in and out of sunrise

At his favorite pub in Newcastle, England, named for a swan with a pair of nicks cut into its beak, Ivan Georgiev crooned these lines: “I’m sitting alone by a window, and the sun is set, staring through an open door.”

in a pub the drinking song
there is always a way out--
Swan With Two Necks

Chin admired two swans.

shapes of hearts
the romance of swans
in the mist

Melissa Dennison paused by a river near Bradford, England.

sunset...
the arc of
the swan’s neck

Rick Beven couldn’t intervene in Deal, England.

Spring morning
two cock robins
fighting on a gravestone

Species depend on other species for food or pollination therefore, climate changes mean that to survive, entire ecosystems around the world are taking risks by moving out of their comfort zones, getting in sync with new weather patterns. Mauro Battini watched wintering birds lift the surface off a pond in Pisa, Italy.

leafless branches--
the duck takes flight
skimming the water

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The next issues of the Asahi Haikuist Network appear March 6 and 20. Readers are invited to send haiku for baseball or the vernal equinox 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).

green dragonflies: my renku from PurdyFest #3 (2009)

 I'm clearing off old emails and found this:

"green dragonflies"
 
(composed in bed, Monday morning, Aug. 3/09)
 
cliche frog
plops into 
Master Thay's pond
 
ZenRiver Gardens
summer plump
with mushroom tents
 
much summer rain
the river's voices
louder this year
 
from poem to poem
guests wander the sumac maze
 
oldest camper
alone enjoys
millpond currents
 
while poets compose
river voices refuse
to slow down
 
courtly renku
even Basho's rules 
slowly relax
 
below the flet*
green dragonflies flit
above lily pads
 
*an elven tree stand platform
 
beautiful guests
iridescently robed
serve drinks
 
fresh peaches
fine hairs invite
the bite
 
the hermit's beard
can't hide the smile
for his new girlfriend
 
2 crows caw thru:
another dam poetry reading
 
mushroom tents packed
into beetling cars
our guests depart
 
party over
drunken haijin wane
sober full moon
 

I think this pic is by Pearl Pirie

Many thanks to all who made The Purdy Country Literary Festival 2009 so much fun! Special thanks to Terry Ann & Claudia, our renku masters.    & everyone who brought food for the potluck : )
 
POETRY POWER!
peace,
Chris/cricket & Chase (woof! woof!)
 
p.s. Hidden Brook Press's Purdy antho. AND LEFT A PLACE TO STAND ON  is destined to become a classic in the emerging canon of Canadian People's Poetry. Congratulations to all the editors and contributors.

my haiku in Asahi Haikuist Network

 

ASAHI HAIKUIST NETWORK/ David McMurray

March 15, 2024 at 08:00 JST

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(Illustration by Mitsuaki Kojima)

• 

the wind touches me--I’m inside of things
--Giuliana Ravaglia (Bologna, Italy)

* * *

taking a breath
from the outside in
the ex-premier
--John Hawkhead (Bradford-on-Avon, U.K.)

* * *

sudden gust
the fence gate swings
open and closed
--John Zheng (Itta Bena, Mississippi)

* * *

Blizzard--
mandarins
on a colorful platter
--Marek Printer (Kielce, Poland)

* * *

Even a strong wind
making a detour
to winter roses
--Murasaki Sagano (Tokyo)

* * *

heritage city
pastel doodles
on the wall
--Aparna Pathak (Gurugram, India)

* * *

after a sudden storm--
wisps of steam
from my teacup
--Malcolm MacClancy (Greenore, Ireland)

* * *

old computer
and I
losing functions
--Chris Faiers (Marmora, Ontario)

* * *

falling bombs on Gaza
the weakness of the winds
coming from afar
--Marie Derley (Wallonia, Belgium)

* * *

last breath--
dad silently let go
of my hand
--Mona Bedi (Delhi, India)

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

flag tree
the king finds himself alone
or nearly
--Jerome Berglund (Minneapolis, Minnesota)

The haikuist alluded to Shakespeare’s “King Lear” when he saw a lopsided tree with branches blowing like a flag in strong winds. The playwright suggested the king’s daughter should not be judged based on words, but by her actions. Danijela Grbelja’s haiku questions whether professing one’s love speaks louder than a thunderclap in Sibenik, Croatia.

dragon’s heart
who is still afraid
of thunder?

Satoru Kanematsu was lured by a row of colorful advertising poles waving outside a shopping mall in Nagoya.

First spring gale--
opening sale banners
fluttering

Robin Rich caught sight of a red dragon billowing on the green and red striped flag of Wales. Pamela A. Babusci brightened her home in Rochester, New York, with a wax taper and strung colorful flags outside in hopes that her mantras for peace would be blown by the winds.

the dragon
heads into the wind
Cymru am byth

* * *

windy stars
across prayer flags
i light a candle

Mike Fainzilber in Rehovot, Israel, was astonished to find that he might have been befriended by a Korean rapper, singer and dancer in the 2017 film, “The King,” who goes by the name of a guardian deity of the sea in Japanese mythology.

whispering waves
three lines on a page
Ryujin is my only reader

When Los Angeles, California, was deluged by a huge atmospheric river, Stephen J. DeGuire read biblical verses 6:13-22 in Genesis.

first spring storm
no one around who
owns an ark

Kimberly A. Horning beachcombed in St. Augustine, Florida.

turning over a conch shell
the anole’s tail
disappears

Barbara Anna Gaiardoni couldn’t fathom why she was feeling sad in Verona, Italy. Mel Goldberg found an amenable psychotherapist in Ajijic, Mexico.

Verona Arena
during the winter
a bit of melancholy

* * *

I tell my troubles
to my dragon
she listens

Today marks the Ides of March, when Brutus and his co-conspirators killed Julius Caesar on March 15, 44 B.C. Maurice was sure of what the sea was warning. Horst Ludwig shared a biblical warning from the desert.

rumble of the wind
foam on the crests of the waves
tell me about you

* * *

Old, contemplating
that hadst thou sprung in deserts,
where no men abide

Jessica Allyson took her skates off after receiving a storm warning at the Rideau Canal in Ottawa, Canada. Afterwards, she took home a flat pastry topped with lemon sugar, noting bittersweetly that the world’s longest skating rink had “only been able to be open for skating for a couple of days this year, although that’s more than we’ve had the last two years!”

alert on phone
skateway closed by
freezing rain

* * *

non-skaters
braving the canal
for beavertails

Kanematsu shivered at the news of storm winds blowing from Des Moines, Iowa. Lori Kiefer reported on inclement weather in London, England.

Kicking off
Trump’s roaring campaign
first spring gale

* * *

spring morning
stormy with a chance
of crows

Aldo Schwartz found respite at an ancient Buddhist temple located in Asakusa, Tokyo.

senso-ji
in a storm of new faces
my quiet pleasure

Babusci wrote this haiku to reveal “the kind of abuse that doesn’t leave external scars, just internal ones.” Further explaining “now, she is free and regained her strength and power that she forgot she had.”

leaving
her abusive boyfriend
regaining lost power

Luciana Moretto traveled to see frescoes at a UNESCO World Heritage Site in Romania.

the damned and the devils
in hell fire ... painted
monasteries of Bucovina

Archie Carlos sent a warning from St. Louis Park, Minnesota. Shakhawat Tipu was not sure whom to believe in Dhaka, Bangladesh.

new epoch
layer after layer
of plastic

* * *

A sigh--
Among thousands of fictions
--unspoken

T.D. Ginting stood mouth agape as he took in the surroundings of Medan, Indonesia.

field
fence
the cows g(r)aze...

Daniel Birnbaum reached the vertex of two hyperbola in La Bouilladisse, France.

climbing to the top
the sky and the void
meet

Having realized the inevitability of death at the age of 90, Katsushika Hokusai perfected the essence of ukiyo-e art when every single detail came to life in his masterstroke 1849 scroll “The Dragon of Smoke Escaping from Mount Fuji.” Kanematsu’s haiku suggests that in death, the printmaker became the dragon.

Hokusai’s
last Mount Fuji art
dragon cheers

Monica Kakkar in India and Slawa Sibiga in Poland, respectively, have been brushing up their ink-painting skills.

treasure of techniques…
how Year of the Wood Dragon
swirls in sumi-e

* * *

black on white
on the first sumi-e
dragon’s mark

In Beesenstedt, Germany, Ramona Linke marked her forehead with ashes in the shape of a cross on the first day of Lent, a holy day of fasting and repentance.

Ash Wednesday
a flock of cranes crosses
the hamlet

Knowing the value of religious art pieces, Horst Ludwig appreciated a reprint of Albrecht Durer’s original (1498) woodcut print.

A flea market print
St. George Killing the Dragon
sure not a bad grab

While pulling on a pair of brand-name pantyhose stockings, Susan Burch added a parenthetical phrase to this line: hatching dragon (l)eggs

Afterwards, the haikuist simmered down in Hagerstown, Maryland.

dragon meditation--
doing it until I stop
exhaling fire

A sore throat ravaged Alexander Groth with burning pain in Neuenkirchen, Germany.

becoming a dragon
just for two weeks
--tonsillitis

Kanchan Chatterjee admired a chameleon in Jamshedpur, India.

lingering day--
on the rooftop, the dragon
keeps changing colors

When David Brydges put the cat out on his deck in Cobalt, Ontario, they simultaneously looked at the full moon.

winter night
fuller eyes
brighten

Micheline Comtois-Cecyre looks forward to springtime in Boucherville, Quebec.

it’s snowing here too
happily, the Japanese cherry blossom
is for spring

Emil Karla loves Paris in the springtime.

new love--
sun and rain mingling
and a lot of wind

Nuri Rosegg fears bruising her pure-white petaled tree in Oslo, Norway.

magnolia buds
tiptoe around
stormy spring

Alan Maley took a cue from nature in Canterbury, U.K.

ripples on the lake--
the wind ruffling the water:
I ruffle your hair…

Rosemarie Schuldes sang nursery rhymes while looking for four-leaf clovers in Mattsee, Austria. In Treviso, Italy, Luciana Moretto likely sang: “ladybug, ladybug fly away home.”

lucky
pig and clover
war is over!

* * *

out of thin air
a ladybird on my hand...
assured windfall

Birnbaum posed this rhetorical question.

a bird passes me by
is there always a hurry
in the sky

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The next issue of the Asahi Haikuist Network appears Mar. 29. Readers are invited to send haiku about a starting new job 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).

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