Mosquitoes’ whine
scares the darkness:
the art of hiding behind oneself
--Barry Weiler (Canada)
* * *
Pioneer hut
the tourist season
just beginning
--Jan Dobb (Australia)
* * *
Watching first sunrise
on Borobudur Temple--
such golden (de)light
--T.D. Ginting (Indonesia)
* * *
The black wooden shed
at the bottom of our garden
Dad’s alone
--Helen Buckingham (UK)
* * *
Orange sky
time left on its pink petals
backyard cherry tree
--Vo Tuan Hoang Vy (Vietnam)
* * *
The cottage life—
peace is something
I feel in spring
--Ernesto P. Santiago (Philippines)
* * *
Log cabin
the fragrance of pine
and its warmth
--Teichi Suzuki (Osaka)
* * *
With the moon
petals of cherry floating
in the pool
--Ikuyo Yoshimura (Gifu Prefecture)
* * *
Sakura bloom
unrequited love
woman’s eyes
--Lili Racheva (Bulgaria)
* * *
Blossom carpet
the beauty of her round behind
as she rises
--Heike Gewi (Yemen)
------------------------------
FROM THE NOTEBOOK
------------------------------
Deserted cottage
Pine needles in the pan
for lunch
--Zoran Doderovic (Serbia)
Taking a break while mountain hiking, the haikuist thinks about what he might eat. The noise of Hidehito Yasui’s pleasure craft scares fish in the Seto Inland Sea. Out for a walk in Waterloo, Ontario, Barry Weiler is lured by the beauty of the moon. His cabin in Niigata having been closed all winter long, Yutaka Kitajima opens its windows with a flourish.
Poor catch
too many cooking utensils
pleasure-boat cabin
* * *
Moonlight
drops its yellow nets:
the want of fish to be caught
* * *
Spring sunlight
flooding the cottage
clapboards removed
Ramesh Anand savors a hot meal in rural India. Even at night, Vo Tuan Hoang Vy cannot escape the heat and humidity of his home in Vietnam.
From a distance
the smell of boiling rice
thatched hut
* * *
Hot night
even moonlight
cottage burning
Valeria Barouch spends the night in a Swiss cabin. An unexpected visitor greets Vania Stefanova in Bulgaria. Michael Corr didn’t look back. Fusayo Kawano ponders the riddle: If a tree falls in the forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?
Through black ink branches
the narrow trail disappears
the cabin smoke
* * *
This small turtle
upon debris from the hut
still morning
* * *
Trust again
leaving beach cabin
unlocked
* * *
Hut in a field
door slamming in wind
but who cares?
Romano Zeraschi reads alone in Italy. Ecaterina Neagoe sits with a friend in Romania.
Spring wind
browsing a forgotten book . ..
alone on a bench
* * *
Only two of us--
the wind undulating
cherry blossoms
Rahadian Tanjung draws a line in the sand at an Indonesian beach. Zeraschi piles his words one atop the other. Pravat Kumar Padhy floats cherry petals down a stream in India. Shizuka Suzuki veers around a curve in Tokyo. In Kyoto, Murasaki Sagano is drawn toward her mother.
Drawing a line
on the sandy shore
burning sun
* * *
My
hut . ..
a
candle in the dark
cricket
song
* * *
Spring rain--
cherry blossoms on
meandering flow
* * *
On the curve
kerrias bloom
here and there
* * *
Gravitate
towards mother’s soul
May birthday
Teichi Suzuki finds a pressed blossom between the leaves of a book. Yuji Hayashi would love to lie down in a bed of pink cherry petals. Stella Pierides chides a poet for concentrating on form more than feeling. His colleague deprecates herself but praises Satoru Kanematsu.
Cherry petals
folded in the story of
an old book
* * *
A poet’s dream:
to lie under cherry trees
in full bloom
* * *
Instead of
cherry-blossom-viewing
she counts syllables
* * *
Black pansies
the old haikuist calls
herself witch
The next issue of the Asahi Haikuist Network appears May 18. Readers are invited to send haiku about camping on a postcard to David McMurray at the International University of Kagoshima, Sakanoue 8-34-1, Kagoshima, 891-0197, Japan, or by 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 also the editor of OUTREACH, a bi-monthly column featuring international teachers in The Language Teacher of the Japan Association for Language Teacher (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 Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Asahi Culture Center, Matsuyama City, and Seinan Jo Gakuin University.
McMurray's books include: "Canada Project in Kyushu" Vol. 1 (2006) - Vol. 7 (2011), Pukeko: Fukuoka; "Haiku in English as a Japanese Language" (2003), Pukeko: Kitakyushu; and "Hospital Departmental Operations - A Guide for Trustees and Managers," Canadian Hospital Association: Ottawa, Canada.
- « Prev
- 1
- Next »
