right here they’re proven there they’re hidden moonbeams
–Vessislava Savova (Sofia, Bulgaria)
* * *
transferring day…
I stroll alpine moon
again to the valley
–Hifsa Ashraf (Rawalpindi, Pakistan)
* * *
serene night–
above temples and prisons
the identical moon
–Vasile Moldovan (Bucharest, Romania)
* * *
newly married–
a brand new fullness
to the moon
–Joe Sebastian (Chennai, India)
* * *
wallpaper–
silver threads run by way of
the moon
–Roberta Seashore Jacobson (Indianola, Iowa)
* * *
moth wings
the murmur of waves
drawn to the moon
–Mike Gallagher (Lyreacrompane, Eire)
* * *
cutlass moon–
sitting subsequent to a crass passenger
the practice horn
–Jorge Alberto Giallorenzi (Buenos Aires, Argentina)
* * *
Flanders fields
whispering the names
in wheat ears
–Keith Evetts (Thames Ditton, U.Ok.)
* * *
olfactory dreams–
wafting mooncake odors from
the oven subsequent door
–Jeff Leong (Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia)
* * *
French market
a whiff of olives
and a runaway snail
–Lee Nash (Poitou-Charentes, France)
——————————
FROM THE NOTEBOOK
——————————
By way of perseverance
white chrysanthemums
bloom in time
–Murasaki Sagano (Tokyo)
The haikuist coaxes struggling autumn flowers. Winter and spring disappeared in a short time, but summer season is lasting eternally. Satoru Kanematsu hopes to obviously view the harvest moon rise on Sept. 21, two days earlier than the autumn equinox.
Veiled by clouds
eclipsed supermoon
in my goals
Let’s assessment what haikuists have recorded of their season-word almanacs up to now this yr. The spring pageant on the lunar calendar started on Feb. 12. Quickly thereafter, Alan Summers mentioned his leafy bamboo hedge in Wiltshire, England, “had turn out to be a small forest, and you may sense the tendrils being prepared as soon as the chilly snap is over.”
creeping frost…
how the bamboo forest
gathers its tendrils
Cherry blossoms arrived a month early, in response to native meteorologists and observant haikuists resembling Aaron Ozment, a college scholar in Kagoshima who’s researching loss of life poetry.
Potomac blossoms
Contact the water one after the other
Carried out to sea
Spring was short-lived: a couple of month of the prime poetry-writing season was misplaced to international warming. Marshall Hryciuk squinted in vivid Canadian sunshine.
gleaming Might Day
extra leaves than butterflies
twirling by way of
By summertime, Kanematsu’s neighborhood in Nagoya was a leafy jungle stuffed with lacking pet snakes, tropical birds and turtles. Whereas trimming timber and questioning whether or not to cut hearth logs for the winter, Charlie Smith counted tons of of fireflies in Raleigh, North Carolina. Florin Cezar Ciobica hoped for a second spherical in Botosani, Romania. Hryciuk was cautious of wasps constructing paper nests in Toronto, Ontario.
Crescent moon–
fancy pet lizard
on the free
* * *
At moonrise
empty woodshed
filled with fireflies
* * *
first date
a wasp attracted
by my chilly beer
* * *
yellowjacket
already in June
the trill of oak leaves
In response to haikuists, the common pulse of 4 seasons had been disrupted by the local weather disaster. Summer season by no means appeared to finish. Elizabeth Lara blended a spicy icy drink in Silver Spring, Maryland. Eva Limbach stirred her drink with a leafy celery stalk, coyly remarking, “That was a few years in the past and every of us tells the story slightly otherwise.” Fukuzawa overheard a one-way dialog. Arvinder Kaur was bemused. Weary from 45 diploma warmth in Catania, Italy, Rosa Maria Di Salvatore refreshed her tea leaves.
Bloody Mary packed
with ice sizzles down
my throat
* * *
bloody mary
the variety of
our reminiscences
* * *
Reunion–
an outdated man tells his wartime story
to the chilly beer
* * *
chilled beer
the time he takes
to wipe the moustache
* * *
sizzling day…
slightly lemon granita
in my glass of tea
Goran Gatalica sipped on a powerful highball made with leaves of mint in Croatia. Dan Iulian twirled a paper parasol in Bucharest, Romania. At a restaurant in Lazarevac, Serbia, Dejan Ivanovic romanticized tropical island life. Stephen J. DeGuire and mates doused the drought in Los Angeles, California.
pineapple mojitos–
a lot bigger than ourselves
this summer season warmth
* * *
burning sun–
every with its personal umbrella
me and my Mojito
* * *
The ice melts
in a glass–a topless lady
beneath a parasol
* * *
mo’ individuals
cool off by consuming
mojitos
Douglas J. Lanzo blended a rosy-colored moon with blue moon wildflowers in Chevy Chase, Maryland. Anne-Marie McHarg noticed a blue moon final month in a London park the place she additionally watched a resplendent blue and inexperienced feathered Indian peafowl. Amrutha Prabhu bejeweled for the harvest in Bengaluru, India. Xenia Tran discovered a needle within the haystack at Nairn, Scotland.
blue woodland phlox
rises with pink moon
casting purple hue
* * *
Mesmerized
Heron watching ripples
Moon in her glory
* * *
On inexperienced lawns
The cries of peacocks
From far and close to
* * *
girl in inexperienced
with gold-plated jewellery…
reaping rice
* * *
misplaced and located
the barn key glitters
within the moonlight
Japanese haikuists historically confer with the eighth month on the lunar calendar as “hazuki” (leaf month), which began Sept. 7 on the photo voltaic calendar, coincident with the withering of Kiyoshi Fukuzawa’s houseplant.
The final two leaves
cyclamen combat summer season warmth
flowers lengthy gone
Hidehito Yasui whispered a prayer in Osaka. Bushes in Melanie Vance’s pretty backyard equally shared solar and shade in Dallas, Texas. Milan Rajkumar waited a very long time for a cooling breeze in Imphal, India.
Afternoon quiet
a leaf indifferent from God’s hand
falls straight to the bottom
* * *
backyard Buddha
yin and yang of the
lunar eclipse
* * *
autumn wind…
on a stone Buddha’s lap
a single leaf
Marek Kozubek watched farmers in Bangkok, Thailand. J.L. Huffman referred to the palm-leaf sunhats worn in Vietnam. She is the creator of “Almanac: The 4 Seasons, 2020,” which chronicled the one-year cycle of nature poetry, and “an occasional human pops in to benefit from the view.”
rice fields–
beneath conical hats
hidden drops of sweat
* * *
rice paddies
dotted with non la
rice reapers
Honey Novick was reinvigorated to jot down poetry when autumn climate mystically arrived in Toronto, Ontario. Jeffrey Winke water-painted with grays and blues in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
Fog paints blue sky gray
daring adventures of hope
laughter rewards heat
* * *
suspended grey
blue lightning
evermore
Vaccines are shot into the brachia, the naked higher arm, notes Lee Nash. Aptly named, the brachia shrubs in gardens flip a beautiful rust coloration towards early fall. Francoise Maurice waited on pins and needles in Draguignan, France.
anxious wait
an orderly queue
of brachia
* * *
on the edge
the Covid epidemic
dandelion down
Richard Bailly described the style and odor of a wet autumn day in Fargo, North Dakota. Patrick Sweeney regarded ahead to a superb evening’s sleep with a standard treatment of fungus and roots.
malt aroma
imminent heavy rainfall
rusty day
* * *
like an aspergil
the herbalist shakes the rain
out of pink valerian
Maria Teresa Piras admired rain-washed leaves in Serrenti, Italy. Masumi Orihara juxtaposed heartrending information with the sounds of knocking heads of grain and drying leaves calling for a change of seasons. Zahra Mughis set sail as autumn ready to depart Lahore, Pakistan.
autumn rain–
the intense inexperienced
of olive leaves
* * *
Afghan motherland
fierce battle for survival
the delicate rustling wheat
* * *
crusing
downstream
leaf boat
An official “autumn leaves day” in Japan is ready by observing a sampling of maple timber. That auspicious day is asserted when nearly all of leaves are noticed to have turned crimson. Vance and Pippa Philips, respectively, are looking forward to the primary leaf to fall.
somersaulting
over yard trampoline
shadows of maple timber
* * *
bus stop–
how lengthy
earlier than the leaf falls
John S. Gilbertson has his sights set on the final leaf in Greenville, South Carolina. An ophthalmologist regarded Kanematsu straight within the eyes. Vandana Parashar prevented her dad’s glare in Panchkula, India. Rosa Maria di Salvatore described the moon to an ailing member of the family in Catania, Italy. Adjei Agyei-Baah entered a staring contest in Kumasi, Ghana.
high leaves
final to see solar
fall farthest
* * *
Nose to nose
with an oculist
my blurred sight
* * *
one other enterprise journey
I cover
father’s glasses
* * *
veiled moon…
grandpa’s cataract
is getting worse
* * *
full-blown moon
the extended stare
of a chimney cat
Henryk Czempiel foresees an accident in Strzelce Opolskie, Poland. Ram Chandran observed sharp-edged shadows in Madurai, India. Dan Iulian has beloved autumn for a lifetime in Bucharest, Romania.
Thunder moon
shadows of the felled timber
on the residence
* * *
palm fronds
cut up the moon–
patterns on the ground
* * *
the moon within the sky
a lifelong buddy
leaves within the wind
Michael Lindenhofer watched oarsmen methodically dip their blades in gold on the Danube River. Santos heard the sound of crumbling dry leaves sooner than common this yr due to excessive drought situations in California. McHarg hung out alone. Jim Niffen fell silent in Sioux Falls, South Dakota.
morning row
eight golden oars’
synchronous play
* * *
morning stroll
beneath my ft the crunch
of dried leaves
* * *
The quietness:
A rustle of leaves
In solitude
* * *
autumn moon
glides throughout a
silent pond
Bona M. Santos loves strolling when coloured leaves fall. Jacob Blumner went mountain climbing in Flint, Michigan. Rose Menyon Heflin sketched the windblown dry prairies to the south of Madison, Wisconsin.
morning hush
the mild caress
of falling leaves
* * *
crossing a dry creek
the footbridge
makes the one sound
* * *
Gently swaying grasses
Wind and lightning on the plains
Thunderous silence
Priti Khullar’s love parched throughout a drought between the 2 annual monsoons that cloud over Noida, India. Sushama Kapur woke up immediately in Pune, India.
Land fissures
barren clouds
drained our hearts
* * *
eerie silence
tapping my window
a dry department
Neither Bakhtiyar Amini in Duesseldorf, Germany, nor Zdenka Mlinar in Zagreb, Croatia, bought a lot sleep final evening.
Insomnia–
retaining the moon
with my gaze
* * *
full moon
in my mattress
insomnia
Ozment rests in peace with bugs. Kanematsu slept realizing his backyard is safe. Parashar hesitated for a second earlier than locking her door. Aljosa Vukovic feared the sound of bugs.
Candy sleep not a care
On my headboard deep in prayer
Guardian mantis
* * *
Day and evening
guarding the backyard
sunflowers
* * *
curfew–
the evening nonetheless alive
with chirping crickets
* * *
After a horror film
even the cricket sounds
just like the satan
No haikuist might have foretold such unusual seasonal deviations from studying poetry almanacs. Questioning whether or not winter will ever return, Carl Brennan referred to the “The Tragic Historical past of the Life and Loss of life of Physician Faustus” carried out in 1592. His haiku was impressed by the physician’s eager for the devilish energy to grant a girl’s request for a bunch of recent grapes though it was January.
Floorboards splintered
Hell’s melodrama rises
Faustus abjures his books
In response to Wakayama Prefecture journey guides, the height day for viewing crimson leaves was Dec. 14 final yr; a half-century in the past it was mid-November. This yr haikuists would possibly wait till Christmas to identify coloured leaves. Lenard D. Moore famous how seasonal sports activities have gone topsy-turvy in North Carolina.
Christmas Day–
all of the tennis sneakers squeak
on the b-ball courtroom
—————————————————————-
Local weather change has modified the haiku seasons at http://www.asahi.com/ajw/special/haiku/. The following problems with the Asahi Haikuist Community seem Oct. 1, 15, and 29. Readers are invited to ship haiku about apples, lemons or mandarin oranges on a postcard to David McMurray on the Worldwide College 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 Community column since April 1995, first for the Asahi Night Information. He’s on the editorial board of the Pink Moon Anthology of English-Language Haiku, columnist for the Haiku Worldwide Affiliation, and is editor of Educating Help, a column that includes graduate college students in The Language Trainer of the Japan Affiliation for Language Educating (JALT).
McMurray is professor of intercultural research at The Worldwide College of Kagoshima the place he lectures on worldwide haiku. On the Graduate College he supervises college students who analysis haiku. He’s a correspondent college trainer of Haiku in English for the Asahi Tradition Middle in Tokyo.
McMurray judges haiku contests organized by Ito En Oi Ocha, Asahi Tradition Middle, Matsuyama Metropolis, Polish Haiku Affiliation, Ministry of International Affairs, Seinan Jo Gakuin College, and Solely One Tree.
McMurray’s award-winning books embody: “Solely One Tree Haiku, Music & Metaphor” (2015); “Canada Venture Collected Essays & Poems” Vols. 1-8 (2013); and “Haiku in English as a Japanese Language” (2003).
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