August dream
Gary Snyder I
wharf table
--Michael Corr (Nagoya)
* * *
The cat
radiates love
breakfast table
--Bernhard Kopf (Austria)
* * *
The midday sun
pouring down vertically
the burning rays
-- Rahadian Tanjung (Indonesia)
* * *
Brownout
gleam of hydrangeas
in the vase
--Teiichi Suzuki (Osaka)
* * *
After chemo
among the dark colors
bright thread entangled
--Urszula Wielanowska (Poland)
* * *
Mammography--
the finely checked pattern
of the carpet
--Ramona Linke (Germany)
* * *
Radiation zone.
With the evening breeze the cry
of the cicadas
--Beate Conrad (Michigan)
* * *
No flash, no sound
how can we know it?
these days of peace
--Fusayo Kawano (Fukuoka Prefecture)
* * *
After Chernobyl
we learn to fear
sheep
--Helen Buckingham (UK)
* * *
Sunday morning
sons close to the TV set
Phineas and Ferb
--Mariusz Ogryzko (Poland)
-------------------------
FROM THE NOTEBOOK
-------------------------
driving home late
an owl speaks
for an entire forest
--ai li (England)
The haikuist calls upon the hoot of a wise old owl to voice all our concerns for the environment. Like a breeze that unobtrusively comes and goes, she prefers her name and haiku to be written in lower case. Satoru Kanematsu summons the first line (“furu ike ya”) from Matsuo Basho’s most famous poem to express his fear that nuclear power protests in Japan will fail. Writing from Taiwan, Ron Norman realizes the problems faced by Japan are universal.
An old pond--
cicadas’ songs cause
no ripples
* * *
We are all Japanese
torn by war water fission
if we could speak
Writing from Indonesia, T.D. Ginting’s first line hints at Cat Steven’s 1976 hit song, “Morning Has Broken,” written by Eleanor Farjeon, which begins, “Morning has broken, like the first morning/ Blackbird has spoken, like the first bird.”
Morning is coming
as I open my window:
(g)old sun is rising
In “The Future of Haiku, an interview with Kaneko Tohta,” published by Red Moon Press in 2011, the 93-year old haikuist suggests that because today’s youth appreciate music, they’ll naturally use rhythm and meter in their short call-and-response type conversations via cellphones and Twitter social networking sites. Acknowledged as a Person of Cultural Merit in 2008, he believes that if young people exchange short poems that are rich in nuance, their messages might have important cultural value in future.
Writing on one line, ai li posts a warning: a lake no one comes to a bird cries
Fusayo Kawano is intrigued by a Japanese singer who returned from study in the United States to compose the hit single, "Fushigi na Piichi Pai" (Mysterious Peach Pie) in 1980. Steliana Cristina Voicu reflects in Romania. Mario Massimo Zontini believes birdsong can stop the destruction of forests.
Densely green grove
mysterious scent
Takeuchi Mariya’s song
* * *
The song of the flute
in the mirror of the lake
a girl counting stars
* * *
Mid forest
the chain saw stops:
the cuckoo’s song
Brian Robertson listens acutely to groundwater runoff. A whistling train appeals to the poet, who lives in Toronto, Canada.
The rain done, sounds of
trickling water in my yard . ..
follow-up gossip
* * *
Empty dawn
a train far away
calls to me
Decorated with The Order of the Rising Sun in 1995, Tohta claims poetry should be for the masses. He says he will never forget witnessing student-led demonstrations on the premises of the Japanese Diet during May 1960 to protest the conclusion of a security treaty with the United States. The end of that conflict was a turning point for Japan, a defeat of democracy, a return to conservative thought and even modern haiku poets turned to classical writing styles. Writing from Niigata, Yutaka Kitajima pens a tribute to the thousands of anti-nuclear power protesters who take part in demonstrations every Friday in Tokyo’s Nagatacho political district to protest nuclear energy and the government’s decision to restart reactors.
Surrounding
the stuffy Diet
Friday eve
Taking a midsummer’s nap at his cottage, Isao Soematsu recalls having danced with villagers round and round a gaily decorated pole in Sweden until he was dizzy. The celebratory dancing in circles is similar to the bon-odori dancing in Japan in August.
Cottage nap--
a pleasant dream
dance ‘round a Maypole
Writing from England, Alan Summers realizes that many people were lost to the tsunami, but is encouraged to think that “so many miraculously survived the waves.” Myoken Bodhisattva (Bosatsu in Japanese) is the deification of the North Star.
Myoken Bosatsu
I learn all over again
my life is your life
New York haikuists Maria Santomauro and Priscilla Lignori are concerned by the leakage of radiation from the Fukushima nuclear power plant. Summers prays, “If the radiation does affect future generations, let us hope they become new angels to combat this threat for the next future generations after them.”
From Japan
to the Alaskan coast--
radiation sea
* * *
Drifting with the waves
of the Pacific ocean--
radiation plume
* * *
First quarter moon
dancing pinheads burst
into new angel DNA
Ralf Broker monitors the insidious flow of radiation in the sea.
Calm at sea
the creaking of a
Geiger tube
Kiyoshi Fukuzawa marks the second summer he’s been barred from re-entering a town ruined by the nuclear meltdown. Only memories and summer grasses pass through now. Former residents of the evacuated towns who lost their homes and livelihoods worry about the radiation they received. Alicia Hilton in Kenilworth, Illinois, relives fond memories of her grandmother.
NO ENTRY
summer grass runs wild
abandoned town
* * *
Summer dream:
my dead grandmother
shows me the tern’s nest
Italian poet Romano Zeraschi rhetorically uses English, Russian and French. American poet Thomas Canull is inspired by a visit to the Peace Memorial in Hiroshima. Writing from under cloudy skies in North Carolina, Ed Bremson believes that Nagasaki might have been saved from destruction if it had been cloudy on Aug. 9, 1945.
Oh, Hiroshima
why? pochemu? pourquoi?
darting swallows
* * *
Building’s remains . ..
man’s inhumanity to man
yet hope springs eternal
* * *
This cloudy day
too late, too late
oh, Nagasaki
Teichi Suzuku recommends haikuists try to coin summer season words for the Olympics in the Aug. 17 issue of the Asahi Haikuist, admitting, “I spend sleepless nights watching TV.” Angelika Kolompar jumps the gun.
The Queen
cuts the Olympic ribbon
the games start
----------------------------------------------------------
The next issues of the Asahi Haikuist Network appear Aug. 17 and 31. Readers are invited to send haiku about the Olympics 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 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.
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