night swim slowly--slowly sliding in
--Christof Blumentrath (Sweden)

* * *

distancing--
the nightingale songs
intertwined
--Angela Giordano (Avigliano, Italy)

* * *

water-skiing
anglers on both banks
a still image
--Masumi Orihara (Atsugi, Kanagawa)

* * *

Separation--
your eyelash on my finger
wants to stay
--Diksha Sharma (Delhi, India)

* * *

a lemma
of dew
and yet
--Patrick Sweeney (Misawa, Aomori)

* * *

sweaty day--
pollen-laden bee’s legs
stick to the bloom
--Eugeniusz Zacharski (Radom, Poland)

* * *

She took me to class
We danced on old wooden floors,
The light streaming in
--Dina Towbin (Washington, D.C.)

* * *

summer’s first rain
the homeless kid dances
up a storm
--Vandana Parashar (Panchkula, India)

* * *

after the storm
a piece of thunder
in my pocket
--Neha R. Krishna (Mumbai, India)

* * *

what changed education
was not politicians ...
but this virus
--Yusuke Kimura (Sapporo, Hokkaido)

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

Balmy night
tipsy gardenia
in the glass
--Satoru Kanematsu (Nagoya)

Humidity soaring, lights switched off, the haikuist swooned under the spell of a scent made for a hot summer night. Anne-Marie McHarg took off her mask for a moment in London. Sayuri Matsumoto sat by a wide-opened window at home in Sapporo, Hokkaido.

A touch of breath
Caresses my face
The spring wind

* * *

Window chair
wind-caressed cheek
blueberry break

Hifsa Ashraf likely smelled petrichor from the alluvial soils of Rawalpindi, Pakistan. Marshall Hryciuk was hit by the foul odor of thousands of aquatic flying insects that gathered by a lake he was touring in Ontario.

First summer rain
a sinkhole reflects
the day moon

* * *

spray from the beach
our turning bus
skids on a sheath of shadflies

Slobodan Pupovac watched waters rise in Zagreb, Croatia. Jane Beal is summering in a secluded redwood forest on the Pacific Coast in the Santa Cruz Mountains.

small bench
the boy wets his feet
at the riverbank

* * *

flowering tree
lavender blooms
over an empty bench

Fish-shaped windsocks have kept Kanematsu feeling cool in the shade since Children’s Day celebrations. Caressed by a butterfly-like wind, Daniela Misso penned a haiku about sailboat-shaped butterflies near San Gemini, in Umbria, Italy.

Their shadows
swimming on the earth
carp streamers

* * *

blowing wind--
butterflies in the grass
sailing

Japan celebrates the Day of the Sea on July 23. The president of the Haiku Society of America, Jay Friedenberg, went sailing. McHarg watched, wondered for a moment by the calm sea. Rashmi VeSa felt shipwrecked in Bengaluru, India. Rose Mary Boehm lives near the Pacific Ocean in Lima, Peru. D.V. Rozic relives the flower children generation in Croatia.

hazy cloud
a catboat rolls
in afternoon swells

* * *

A girl asleep
In a boat
Drifting

* * *

relaxed garden
buzzing with the lives
of castaways

* * *

I cannot recall
Racing through life without thought
Ocean waves soothe me

* * *

the second great wave ...
my teenage rebellion
rewilded

Meik Blottenberger lives in Pennsylvania Amish country--settled since the 1720s, it is the oldest such community in America. Kanematsu thanked caregivers fighting on the frontlines in Japan against COVID-19.

thoughts of Tokyo
my niece wins gold
for speed texting

* * *

Blue fireworks
prayers for winning
against plague

A health-care professional, Elizabeth Gibbs seized the day in Calgary. While volunteering in Greece, Anne-Marie McHarg was amazed by the white and blue hues of the sea and hillside villages. As she approached one of the seaside homes, she said “the smell took my breath away.” Wisteria flowers from Judith Hishikawa’s upstairs neighbor have grown down over her doorway. She recounted that the “original seedpod was transplanted from their village in Greece when they moved to Astoria, New York.”

street protests
coronavirus deliciously calls out
carpe diem

* * *

White-washed houses
with wisteria dripping from walls
ablaze of colour

* * *

windy day
wisteria petals twist and turn
on the way down

David Kawika Eyre raised his right hand in Volcano, Hawai'i. Stephen S. Power had trouble keeping his eye on the ball in Maplewood, New Jersey.

dandelion seed
sailing through
the strike zone

* * *

chalk from the foul line
chases the fair ball to right
dandelion seeds

Drawn to the sound of prayers, Tsanka Shishkova entered the Aladzha monastery on the Black Sea. Murasaki Sagano greeted a pair of stone lion dogs at the gate of Shinto shrine in Tokyo. One of the carved guardians had an open mouth, the other closed representing the beginning and end.

beach temple ...
near the stone garden
wind flutes

* * *

Stronger than
stone-carved guardian dogs
tiger lilies

Nearing Vancouver Island in Canada, Charlie Smith could make out the outline of killer whales, ravens and a huge wooden bear eyeing a carved salmon. Anne-Marie McHarg plodded along in London, U.K. Arvinder Kaur could not believe her eyes in Chandigarh, India.

slow ferry
destination in view
totem poles

* * *

Languid
In the heat of day
Tortoise slow

* * *

hot asphalt--
a homeless man’s walk
towards a mirage

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

The next issue of the Asahi Haikuist Network appears July 31. Readers are invited to send haiku about the heat, 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).