the beauty in the beauty magnolia
--Pere Risteski (North Macedonia)

* * *

hand on her shoulder--
breathing
of magnolia
--Goran Gatalica (Zagreb, Croatia)

* * *

its fragrance
almost a taste ...
camellia
--Veronika Zora Novak (Toronto, Canada)

* * *

quarantined spring
I share peppermint tea
with a wild bee
--Damir Damir (Kotor, Montenegro)

* * *

spring’s passion
earth throbs with vitality
Beltane’s bright fires
--Meghan E. Jones (Calgary, Alberta)

* * *

Bonfire
in the mountain meadow
the scent of mursala tea
--Tsanka Shishkova (Sofia, Bulgaria)

* * *

carefully gathering
chamomile flowers--
“We need to talk.”
--Junko Saeki (Tokyo)

* * *

Spring patience
missing tea parties
old-age friends
--Murasaki Sagano (Tokyo)

* * *

pandemic--
I drink herbal tea
all alone
--Vasile Moldovan (Bucharest, Romania)

* * *
a healing place--
holy basil & sweet tulsi
in my kitchen
--Mary Vlooswyk (Calgary, Alberta)

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

white petal lands
on a child’s tongue--
holy communion
--Stephen J. DeGuire (Los Angeles, California)

The haikuist was reminded of suffering and love on Easter Day. Satoru Kanematsu was implored to say “ah.” John Daleiden’s mouth opened wide after tasting tea in Phoenix, Arizona.

Helplessly
in the dentist’s chair
chilly spring

* * *

drinking tea
from my porcelain cup
ah, the aroma

Amy Losak sipped herbal tea in Teaneck, New Jersey. Then, she wrote this one-line haiku: after magnolias ... cherry blossoms. After which, all she could see was pink. Elancharan Gunasekaran became irritated in Singapore. Vandana Parashar sensed trouble in Panchkula, India.

afternoon tea
drinking in the pinks
of a magnolia

* * *

all this pink
is getting under my skin
trying not to think

* * *

herbal tea
the air carries the smell
of brewing argument

Admiring her mother’s fine bone china, Angela Giordano sipped a sweet peppermint blend that left a cooling sensation in her mouth. Kiyoshi Fukuzawa feels at ease sipping a spicy Middle Eastern blend.

mom’s cup--
mint tea takes on
a different flavor

* * *

Cardamom flavor
no longer foreign to me
distant Qur’an

Maxianne Berger dressed up for tea in Montreal, Quebec. As a child in Peterborough, Ontario, Sue Colpitts “had tea parties with my dolls. My cat would join us if I was serving milk in the tiny cups.” Lilia Racheva shared gossip in Rousse, Bulgaria. Tiffany Shaw Diaz downed a cuppa red bush tea.

playing tea party
a girl and her dolly
in matching dresses

* * *

child’s tea party
three dolls and one
uninvited cat

* * *

whispers,
petals of camellia
in afternoon tea

* * *

lukewarm rooibos
more news
about COVID

Beate Conrad sauntered down a quiet street in Hildesheim, Germany. Tsanka Shishkova was stuck in traffic. June Read found a pastel-colored beauty in the gutters of Calgary, Alberta. Isaiah Silvers practiced his swing in Fukuchiyama, Kyoto. Meghan E. Jones and fellow poets in the Magpie and From Away writing circles have postponed meeting in Canada until safe to do so again.

Valentine’s Day--
meeting on a lonely road
two stray cats

* * *

rush hour ...
cherries must be blooming
somewhere

* * *

rainstorm drain
grey overcast sky
pink camellias bloom

* * *

Arc to the trees
runners home easy when we’d
swing at tennis balls

* * *

in flight
magpies wheel in circles
never touching

Kath Abela Wilson blushed in Pasadena, California. Isabella Kramer was overjoyed in Lower Saxony, Germany. Tim Hudenburg captured an ephemeral moment. Member of a writer’s group in Lima, Peru, Dina Towbin exhaled at the last sight of pink.

first bloom
her cheeks
are pink

* * *

spring wind
all these cherry blossoms
laughing

* * *

fluttering cherry blossoms
papery thin
pink covid masks

* * *

The cherry blossom,
Explodes in living color,
Then fades away sigh

Luciana Moretto hasn’t heard from her niece who is half-Italian and half-Japanese and lived in China, grieving, “Now I don’t know. In spite of everything she is always present in my mind.”

Sakura
my niece’s name
a faraway bloom

Marion Clarke visited an Edwardian (1901-1910) bandstand at a local park in Warrenpoint, Northern Ireland. Then she wrote a haiku on one-line.

the tuba filling with blossoms park bandstand

Lakshmi Iyer enjoyed a tubful in Palakkad, India.

hanami spa
the fresh blossoms
rejuvenating

Guliz Mutlu applauded a spectacular apparition at twilight in Ankara, Turkey.

I will walk
to the opera house
Venus in the west

Kazuo Takayanagi praised brilliantly colored trees for their heroic stance as well as Ludwig van Beethoven’s musical work that premiered in Vienna on April 7, 1805. Amy Losak toured the garden that nurtured the first hybrid precocious yellow-flowering magnolia in 1953. In Essex, U.K., Lucy Whitehead came to realize the significance of life itself. Eleonore Nickolay confessed, “my garden … helps me over this frightening time.”

Eroica Symphony
performed by my old friends--
ginkgo trees in burning yellow

* * *

Brooklyn Botanical
how the yellow startles
magnolia tree

* * *

virus outbreak
a honeybee flies
between cherry blossoms

* * *

Earth hour
brightly in my garden
the cherry tree glows

Ashoka Weerakkody writes for the lost love of a woman who never married in Colombo, Sri Lanka. Djurdja Vukelic Rozic welcomed migrants to Croatia.

missed hanami
enchanting sadness you left me
lingers

* * *

our white storks
returned from Africa
no one noticed

Kanematsu likely alcohol-wiped an old copy of a novel that he read in English as a college student in Nagoya. Murasaki Sagano was frustrated in Tokyo. Helga Stania was pent-up in Ettiswil, Switzerland. Sipping her manager’s favorite brand of tea, Masumi Orihara recalled a bitter moment at work.

COVID woe--
rereading The Plague
by Camus

* * *

Hanami
Over the border
“Let me go”

* * *

Ginger tea
a brimful moment
of wanderlust

* * *

Sweet sour day
under hardworking boss
always rosehip tea

The 1947 bestseller by Albert Camus (1913-1960) described a seaside town sealed off by quarantine as it is ravaged by bubonic plague, and the slowness of the authorities to take action and call it a plague, due to “the usual taboo, of course; the public mustn’t be alarmed, that wouldn’t do at all.” After ruminating in Tokyo, Saeki concluded “more than ever before I suspect plants will survive mankind on this planet.” Teiichi Sukuzi remains optimistic in Osaka, believing “human agency is perdurable under any circumstances.”

tulips sprouting
my garden untouched by
the global epidemic

* * *

pandemic--
in infant care rooms
small life born

Titling her haiku “Wooden Engawa,” Sally A. Fox is all set to go.

Bowed head, diamond eyes,
hands clasped; prayers recited.
A heron takes flight.

Haiku blooms at http://www.asahi.com/ajw/special/haiku/. The next issues of the Asahi Haikuist Network appear May 1, 15 and 29. Readers may send haiku about baseball bird mascots such as cardinals or swallows, spring flowers such as wisteria or hydrangea, or upcoming holidays such as Green Day or Children’s Day, 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 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).