ripe apple scent building a nest on my head the crows
--Isabella Kramer (Nienhagen, Germany)

* * *

garden pond
a little apple makes
the moon tremble
--Christof Blumentrath (Borken, Germany)

* * *

Autumn chill
a lame duck squatting
White House pond
--Satoru Kanematsu (Nagoya)

* * *

Autumn thoughts
the loss of something
on the wind
--Murasaki Sagano (Tokyo)

* * *

inkstone
dewdrops sparkle
in the moonlight
--Randall Herman (Concord, Nebraska)

* * *

handing out apples
horses swish their tails
one after another
--Tom Bierovic (DeLand, Florida)

* * *

A half-lit garden
Courage, barking dog then fame
Uneaten, bitter
--Ronnie Smith (Valros, France)

* * *

gate ajar
a persimmon...
the rest is memory
--Luciana Moretto (Treviso, Italy)

* * *

glass plate
with apples and rose hips
cranes fly south
--Tsanka Shishkova (Sofia, Bulgaria)

* * *

open window
under the crabapple tree
the voice of a strange woman
--Radostina Dragostinova (Sofia, Bulgaria)

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

autumn equinox the lure of apple orchards and warm woolen socks
--Jenn Ryan-Jauregui (Portland, Oregon)

Currently living in Arizona, the haikuist intends to follow the sun back to where she was inspired to write this haiku in the Pacific Northwest. Rosemarie Schuldes has a question for newcomers to Mattsee, Austria.

a lonely apple
beneath the old birch
where are you from?

Neena Singh shared souvenirs from Chandigarh, India, when she visited Soka University in Hachioji, Tokyo. Halwa, an Indian pudding, is made with apples, sugar, milk and ghee (clarified butter). Eleven-year-old Alanie Matthews enjoyed a wonderful autumn day in Misawa, Aomori Prefecture. Candy apples are an American treat.

Soka students
share Indian sweet--
my candy smiles

* * *

Apple harvest
time to come down
from the great big tree

From Bradford on Avon, U.K., John Hawkhead alluded to the human affliction of endlessly searching for the perfect partner. Pippa Phillips bit into a honeycrisp while apple-picking in Massachusetts. While taking a break, Julia Guzman kept her eye on wildfires in Cordoba, Argentina.

autumn windfall
she searches the earth for
an unbruised apple

* * *

Freshly bruised,
a fallen apple--
still sweet

* * *

bite from a fresh red apple--
in the distance
fire in the mountains

Pitt Buerken awaited a sweet apple in Munster, Germany. Marta Chocilowska sketched a winter scene in Warsaw, Poland.

after three night frosts
a last apple on the tree
steady as a rock

* * *

snowy garden
full of wild apples
bare branches

A sharp-tasting apple added some zing to Roberta Beach Jacobson’s day in Indianola, Iowa. Rajeshwari Srinivasan tried something new in Thane, India.

fresh from tree--
tart flavor burst
of apples

* * *

first apple juice
the baby’s tongue twists
into a gurgle

Nationwide pro-democracy protests in Belarus this winter are a far cry from the calm that Philmore Place described in the shadowy silhouette of a bare tree in Minsk.

old apple tree
lines of emptiness
in place of leaves

Mona Iordan penned two lines for a teacher she couldn’t meet in Bucharest, Romania. Writing from Vaires sur Marne in Paris, Eleonore Nickolay heard the unmistakable, muted sound of falling apples. It was a moment she’s also penned in German and French, a sad moment the haikuist says she’ll never forget.

drying up on the tree--
the apple for the teacher

* * *

my friend ill
in her garden the muffled fall
of ripe apples

Joanne van Helvoort’s neighbors fear winter in The Netherlands. Ronnie Smith’s commune went to seed in the south of France. Daniela Misso went for a walk in San Gemini, Umbria.

early snow
two blackbirds fight over
a rotten apple

* * *

Planted for blossom
Trees dance once then bow
Fruit rots quietly

* * *

yellow leaves
falling along the path…
apple scent

Smith picked up the silver. After a terrible typhoon, Kanematsu picked up the silver lining from fallen clouds. Anne-Marie McHarg experienced a lively autumn in London. Dennis Woolbright helped with the rice harvest in Kita-Kyushu. For the farmer-haikuist, thunder is heard indoors during the summer, whereas lightning is seen outdoors in autumn.

Skinned then sliced
Silver, most elegant knife
Slim in an old hand

* * *

Picking up
fallen ginkgo nuts
typhoon gift

* * *

Wild weather
Tree branches swaying
Apple fall

* * *

Old man, listens and sees
lightning thunder
harvest

Kiyoshi Fukuzawa praised his wife of many years in Tokyo. Ljiljana Dobra learned how to bake in Croatia. Suraj Nanu sat down with his better half in India. Srinivasan munched alone. Phillips discovered a star-shaped core. Rosemarie Schuldes took stars home to Mattsee, Austria.

Morning apple
cut in perfect shapes
skillful hands

* * *

apple pie
smells like grandma’s hands
cinnamon

* * *

an apple
cut into two--
joy of sharing

* * *

half eaten apple
his shadow falls
on my dream

* * *

Sharing an apple
split into a pair--
star-hearted

* * *

collecting stars
in my apron dress
bushy asters

Arvinder Kaur sat down in the kitchen for a biblically inspired talk in Chandigarh, India. The month passed slowly for Vandana Parashar in Panchkula. After nine months, Justice Joseph Prah took a deep controlled breath in Accra, Ghana.

sex education
grandma begins
from the forbidden apple

* * *

apple season
the slow ripening
of my womb

* * *

apple shape
after delivery
her yoga checkup at a mirror

In this imagist poem, Beate Conrad fathoms the stars overhead and the tiny viruses inside Hildesheim, Germany. Isabella Kramer awoke from a memory.

becoming real
some worlds in our world
so hard to see

* * *

through space-time...
the first autumn apple lands
right in my hand

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

The next issue of the Asahi Haikuist Network appears Dec. 18. Readers are invited to send haiku about snow, 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).