lightning dances with thunder dances with lightning
--Veronika Zora Novak (Toronto, Ontario)

* * *

eagles ...
circling and circling
the spring mountain
--Taofeek Ayeyemi (Lagos, Nigeria)

* * *

still noon ...
a hawk’s shadow circles
the empty park
--Kanchan Chatterjee (Jamshedpur, India)

* * *

peregrine falcon
task up the stairs steep climb
stalked to belfry
--Francis Attard (Marsa, Malta)

* * *

atop of the rock
my thoughts are with a falcon--
flight over secrets
--Dragan J. Ristic (Nis, Serbia)

* * *

lost on the scenic drive
we overlook
the overlook
--Jay Friedenberg (Riverdale, New York)

* * *

Gazing
into the crystal
Northern Miner
--John Hamley (Marmora, Ontario)

* * *

mountain trail--
the last human prints
sprouting grass
--Stephen J. DeGuire (Los Angeles)

* * *

Summer grass
washed and combed--
fleeting floods
--Kiyoshi Fukuzawa (Tokyo)

* * *

mountain jungle
at the edge of the sinkhole
white lilies
--Helga Stania (Ettiswil, Switzerland)

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

No stepping stones
Through last year’s clear cut
Slow hiking
--Lothar M. Kirsch (Meerbusch, Germany)

The haikuist lives nestled in a beech-forested range of midsize mountains “streaked with marked hiking paths.” In the next haiku he warns hikers that “even summer can be cold.” Anne-Marie McHarg froze midstep.

Late spring frost
The potatoes don’t like--
Moths cuddle in wool

* * *

Butterfly
poised
on a rock

Yutaka Kitajima plans to celebrate Mountain Day at home in Joetsu, Niigata Prefecture, surrounded by the Japan Alps. Jane Beal’s home is concealed by the Santa Cruz Mountains in California.

Thinning out
remnants of the ranch
white clover

* * *

mist in the mountains
a veil over the crown
of the redwood tree

John Hamley invested in a mountain full of nickel ore. He drove up rough roads in northern Ontario to inspect a shed full of drilling cores before purchasing mining shares. Selling out when copper prices peaked, he now drives a classic Fiat 124 Spyder. Patrick Sweeney enriched himself watching reruns of an actor with a pleasing baritone voice who was born in the carbon fuel-rich mountains of Wales.

Red sports car
penny mines
sold in time

* * *

the great coal seam
in the dark voice
of Richard Burton

Veronika Zora Novak’s haiku alludes to the discovery of sulfur on Jupiter’s moon, Io. NASA’s Voyager was sent to explore the giant planet when Saturn, Uranus and Neptune aligned in space.

stagnant pond ...
a coyote quenched
by sulphur moons

Christof Blumentrath surveyed his life. Angela Giordano set a lofty goal.

crystal clear night
the topography
of our memories

* * *

a wanderer
he dreams of a roof over his head--
cloak of stars

Sweeney might have watched the film “Rebel Without a Cause,” starring Salvatore Mineo Jr. (1939–1976), who was nominated for an Academy Award. A thief stabbed the star to death outside his Hollywood home.

a switchblade star
last night I saw
Sal Mineo

Diksha Sharma was splashed while walking at night in Delhi, India. Inspired by Vincent van Gogh’s (1853-1890) impressionist painting “The Starry Night,” Fatma Gultepe grasped at the immense mystery of fluid dynamics and light over Ankara, Turkey.

Puddles--
with every passing car
stars spill out

* * *

I dream
proportionally
starry night

Satoru Kanematsu took inspiration from the Dutch painter’s still life canvasses.

Sunflower--
glaring in the sun:
van Gogh’s heart

* * *

Sunflowers
staring at the sun
but I can’t

Meghan Elizabeth Jones sent a haiku from the foothills of the Rocky Mountains in Alberta. Caressed by a butterfly-like wind, Daniela Misso penned a haiku on a mountain pass near San Gemini in Italy. Unable to sleep, Kanematsu spun around in a chrysalis of satin bedsheets.

the creek--
alive and ever new
something tight lets go

* * *

blowing wind--
butterflies in the grass
sailing

* * *

Balmy night
as a butterfly
in my dream

Although Kanematsu gave his last lecture 30 years ago, he said he recently experienced a mid-summer dream about his students. Vandana Parashar created a vortex to twirl biased opinions away from Panchkula, India.

Teaching kids
again in my dream
summer dawn

* * *

prejudiceless world
in my dream, I dance
up a storm

Bob Friedland penned these four lines while viewing the North Shore Mountains in British Columbia.

The dreams of old men
all end badly
And then you wake
to a new day

Jay Friedenberg, president of the Haiku Society of America, awoke to a Monet-like sunrise. The French painter could accurately depict light in all its changing qualities.

lake sunrise
pastel hues
color the beach stones

Kanematsu visited a colorful island that is part of a submerged mountain range. At home in Nagoya, he witnessed a great flood submerge a place of worship.

Hibiscus--
wish to visit Guam
one more time

* * *

A small isle
above the floodwaters
the shrine grove

Kynpham Sing Nongkynrih escaped to Shillong, a hill station in northeast India. Angela Giordano watched holidaymakers scramble up the mountainous south of Italy toward her village of Avigliano. Barbara MacKay set forth from a scenic bluff in Little River, California.

Yearning--
so many days without hills
in the hot metropolis

* * *

summer holiday
assault on the mountains
emptied cities

* * *

hot air balloons
sailing to the mountains
on wings of air

Rains forced rodents to scurry, and snakes to slither, up to higher ground according to the worrisome gossip Ed Bremson overheard from his backyard in Raleigh, North Carolina. In Croatia, Zelyko Funda passed by a building with bats in the belfry.

flood warning ...
neighbors gathered and talking
about snakes

* * *

disused church
bats have found shelter
in the tower

Kanematsu shared a haiku from Carl Brennan in New York “about the horrible” all-conquering and equalizing power of death, a concept known as the dance of death. The first line was inspired by an orchestral tone poem written in 1874 by French composer Camille Saint-Saens. During Buddhist rituals in Japan from Aug. 13-15, the ghosts of ancestors will return to dance joyfully with relatives. Eva Limbach matter-of-factly sums up humankind’s score.

Danse Macabre
in full swing at nursing homes
spring is canceled

* * *

the wars we lost
the wars we won
overgrown graveyards

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

Mountains rise up from http://www.asahi.com/ajw/special/haiku/. The next issue of the Asahi Haikuist Network appears Aug. 21. Readers are invited to send haiku about a chilling ghost story on a postcard to David McMurray at the International University of Kagoshima, Sakanoue 8-34-1, Kagoshima, 891-0197, Japan, or email 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).