first snowflake her shaky fingers remember

--Christof Blumentrath (Borken, Germany)

* * *

wildfire fury--

still dreaming

of a snow moon

--Marilyn Humbert (Sydney, Australia)

* * *

first dream

a starling lit

on a spare tire

--Alegria Imperial (Vancouver, British Columbia)

* * *

portrait on marble

a first snowflake

another

--Margherita Petriccione (Scauri, Italy)

* * *

First snowflakes

gently fall on my nose

way back from kindergarten

--Asako Utsunomiya (Hiroshima)

* * *

our breaths

taking shape between us ...

first snow

--Vandana Parashar (Panchkula, India)

* * *

eerie silence--

first cover of white

delights

--Rose Mary Boehm (Lima, Peru)

* * *

with head held high

a street lamp welcomes

the snowflakes

--Milan Stancic Kimi (Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina)

* * *

Saying hi

first to cyclamens

back at home

--Satoru Kanematsu (Nagoya)

* * *

Kitchen sink

rouge-marked teacup

sudden snow

--Murasaki Sagano (Tokyo)

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

FROM THE NOTEBOOK

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

first snow

the scarecrow’s coat

disappeared

--Henryk Czempiel (Strzelce Opolskie, Poland)

The haikuist excused himself to a strawman. Lysa Collins paused to consider a sudden request in White Rock, British Columbia. Aljosa Vukovic took pity on a homeless man in Sibenik, Croatia. Francis Attard bowed to a prince in Marsa, Malta.

snow moon--

an old man

asks for shelter

* * *

bitter cold

the coat’s for the snowman

this time

* * *

tarries in winter

on scarecrow’s shoulders

frost ermine white

Winter found Adjei Agyei-Baah in Hamilton, New Zealand. On an unseasonably warm weekend in Raleigh, North Carolina, Charlie Smith gave a can of artificial snow to the kids in the neighborhood. Natalia Kuznetsova was surprised by a lack of snow in Moscow. Teiichi Suzuki quietly predicted this winter will be green in Osaka.

winter field

a scarecrow whitens

into snowman

* * *

spray can snow

yard scarecrow’s disguise

thin snowman

* * * snowless snowman

wearing granny’s nightie,

snow moon’s grin above

* * *

the snow moon--

Jack Frost descending

in silence

Luciana Moretto shared a philosophical view of introversion from the 19th century “French Vers de Societe.” Robin Rich cherished the day in Brighton, U.K.

to an air-sharpened blade

the moon is thinning ...

our time too

* * *

remember him

playing with snowballs

catching ghosts

Looking in a mirror, Anna Maria Domburg-Sancristoforo wondered if she should have played winter sports. Serhiy Shpychenko got lucky while fishing on a frozen lake in Kyiv, Ukraine. Ryo Okamoto’s haiku was honorably mentioned for “the word glacial” that “adds a feeling of everything being frozen” by the judge of a haiku contest held at Kagawa University.

frosted mirrors--

never learned

how to skate

* * *

exactly corresponds

to the reflected moon

the ice-hole

* * *

glacial wind

my fishing line

don’t move

Angela Giordano wondered about hibernating frogs.

the frog dives

deep in frozen pond--

winter moon

Icy cold weather crawled down the backbone of Japan and right into Yutaka Kitajima’s carport in Joetsu, Niigata: Once settled inside the car the ladybird--won’t fly away.

A cold weather snap in Italy forced Ezio Infantino to leave his car behind. Anne-Marie McHarg decided against taking a bus to work in London. Krzysztof Kokot pined for a letter in Nowy Targ, Poland.

broken car

... what a pity trampling

the fresh snow

* * *

First snows brings

Whiteout--

Winter seclusion

* * *

snow falls

out from the mailbox--

the cold wind blows

Hifsa Ashraf peered through stained glass in Rawalpindi, Pakistan. Boehm coughed in the cold.

deep winter

hoarfrost on attic window

etching the sky

* * *

frost in the air--

air sharp as shards

cuts throats

Snow offered some relief to Steve Wilkinson in Bearpark, Durham, England. Rose Mary Boehm appreciated the way snow covers over the noise in Lima, Peru. Maxianne Berger regained her composure in Montreal, Quebec.

first snow--

the awkward silence

after the argument

* * *

winter--

the unbearable joy

of silence

* * *

deep, deep

after the howling blizzard

the silence

Alegria Imperial endured a wet and chilly Vancouver. She lives on Marine Drive where the onset of winter she says, “has driven the hoarse-cawing crows.” Joan Marie Roberts finally found where her pet had run off to in Victoria.

the dankness

of archived evenings

winter crows

* * *

off-leash park

in a mountain of snow

a tail wags

Taofeek Ayeyemi inspected logs of wood waiting to be shipped to China by timber merchants in the oldest seaport in Nigeria. Julia Guzman heard Argentine forests rolling away. Marina Bellini guarded her evergreen garden in Mantua, Italy.

first snow--

logs drifting in and out

with the tide

* * *

snow storm--

the logs creeping

in the silence

* * *

snow in the air

I cover the lemon tree

with a blanket

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

The next issue of the Asahi Haikuist Network appears Jan. 31. Readers are invited to send haiku about blossoms 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 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 featuring graduate students 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 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: "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).