here they are shown there they are hidden moonbeams
--Vessislava Savova (Sofia, Bulgaria)

* * *

moving day…
I walk alpine moon
back to the valley
--Hifsa Ashraf (Rawalpindi, Pakistan)

* * *

serene night--
above temples and prisons
the same moon
--Vasile Moldovan (Bucharest, Romania)

* * *

newly married--
a new fullness
to the moon
--Joe Sebastian (Chennai, India)

* * *

wallpaper--
silver threads run through
the moon
--Roberta Beach Jacobson (Indianola, Iowa)

* * *

moth wings
the murmur of waves
drawn to the moon
--Mike Gallagher (Lyreacrompane, Ireland)

* * *

cutlass moon--
sitting next to a crass passenger
the train horn
--Jorge Alberto Giallorenzi (Buenos Aires, Argentina)

* * *

Flanders fields
whispering the names
in wheat ears
--Keith Evetts (Thames Ditton, U.K.)

* * *

olfactory dreams--
wafting mooncake odors from
the oven next door
--Jeff Leong (Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia)

* * *

French market
a whiff of olives
and a runaway snail
--Lee Nash (Poitou-Charentes, France)

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

Through perseverance
white chrysanthemums
bloom in time
--Murasaki Sagano (Tokyo)

The haikuist coaxes struggling autumn flowers. Winter and spring disappeared very quickly, yet summer is lasting forever. Satoru Kanematsu hopes to clearly view the harvest moon rise on Sept. 21, two days before the autumn equinox.

Veiled by clouds
eclipsed supermoon
in my dreams

Let’s review what haikuists have recorded in their season-word almanacs so far this year. The spring festival on the lunar calendar began on Feb. 12. Soon thereafter, Alan Summers said his leafy bamboo hedge in Wiltshire, England, “had become a small forest, and you can sense the tendrils being ready once the cold snap is over.”

creeping frost...
how the bamboo forest
gathers its tendrils

Cherry blossoms arrived a month early, according to local meteorologists and observant haikuists such as Aaron Ozment, a university student in Kagoshima who is researching death poetry.

Potomac blossoms
Touch the water one by one
Carried out to sea

Spring was short-lived: more than one month of the prime poetry-writing season was lost to global warming. Marshall Hryciuk squinted in bright Canadian sunshine.

gleaming May Day
more leaves than butterflies
twirling through

By summertime, Kanematsu’s neighborhood in Nagoya was a leafy jungle filled with missing pet snakes, tropical birds and turtles. While trimming trees and wondering whether to chop fire logs for the winter, Charlie Smith counted hundreds of fireflies in Raleigh, North Carolina. Florin Cezar Ciobica hoped for a second round in Botosani, Romania. Hryciuk was wary of wasps building paper nests in Toronto, Ontario.

Crescent moon--
fancy pet lizard
on the loose

* * *

At moonrise
empty woodshed
full of fireflies

* * *

first date
a wasp attracted
by my cold beer

* * *

yellowjacket
already in June
the trill of oak leaves

According to haikuists, the regular pulse of four seasons had been disrupted by the climate crisis. Summer never seemed to end. Elizabeth Lara mixed a spicy icy drink in Silver Spring, Maryland. Eva Limbach stirred her drink with a leafy celery stalk, coyly remarking, “That was many years ago and each of us tells the story a little differently.” Fukuzawa overheard a one-way conversation. Arvinder Kaur was bemused. Weary from 45 degree heat in Catania, Italy, Rosa Maria Di Salvatore refreshed her tea leaves.

Bloody Mary packed
with ice sizzles down
my throat

* * *

bloody mary
the diversity of
our memories

* * *

Reunion--
an old man tells his wartime story
to the cold beer

* * *

chilled beer
the time he takes
to wipe the moustache

* * *

hot day...
a little lemon granita
in my glass of tea

Goran Gatalica sipped on a strong highball made with leaves of mint in Croatia. Dan Iulian twirled a paper parasol in Bucharest, Romania. At a cafe in Lazarevac, Serbia, Dejan Ivanovic romanticized tropical island life. Stephen J. DeGuire and friends doused the drought in Los Angeles, California.

pineapple mojitos--
much larger than ourselves
this summer heat

* * *

burning sun--
each with its own umbrella
me and my Mojito

* * *

The ice melts
in a glass--a topless girl
under a parasol

* * *

mo’ people
cool off by drinking
mojitos

Douglas J. Lanzo blended a rosy-colored moon with blue moon wildflowers in Chevy Chase, Maryland. Anne-Marie McHarg saw a blue moon last month in a London park where she also watched a resplendent blue and green feathered Indian peafowl. Amrutha Prabhu bejeweled for the harvest in Bengaluru, India. Xenia Tran found a needle in the haystack at Nairn, Scotland.

blue woodland phlox
rises with pink moon
casting purple hue

* * *

Mesmerized
Heron watching ripples
Moon in her glory

* * *

On green lawns
The cries of peacocks
From far and near

* * *

lady in green
with gold-plated jewelry...
reaping rice

* * *

lost and found
the barn key glitters
in the moonlight

Japanese haikuists traditionally refer to the eighth month on the lunar calendar as “hazuki” (leaf month), which started Sept. 7 on the solar calendar, coincident with the withering of Kiyoshi Fukuzawa’s houseplant.

The last two leaves
cyclamen fight summer heat
flowers long gone

Hidehito Yasui whispered a prayer in Osaka. Trees in Melanie Vance’s lovely garden equally shared sun and shade in Dallas, Texas. Milan Rajkumar waited a long time for a cooling breeze in Imphal, India.

Afternoon quiet
a leaf detached from God’s hand
falls straight to the ground

* * *

garden Buddha
yin and yang of the
lunar eclipse

* * *

autumn wind...
on a stone Buddha’s lap
a single leaf

Marek Kozubek watched farmers in Bangkok, Thailand. J.L. Huffman referred to the palm-leaf sunhats worn in Vietnam. She is the author of “Almanac: The Four Seasons, 2020,” which chronicled the one-year cycle of nature poetry, and “an occasional human pops in to enjoy the view.”

rice fields--
under conical hats
hidden drops of sweat

* * *

rice paddies
dotted with non la
rice reapers

Honey Novick was reinvigorated to write poetry when autumn weather mystically arrived in Toronto, Ontario. Jeffrey Winke water-painted with grays and blues in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

Fog paints blue sky grey
daring adventures of hope
laughter rewards warmth

* * *

suspended gray
blue lightning
evermore

Vaccines are shot into the brachia, the bare upper arm, notes Lee Nash. Aptly named, the brachia shrubs in gardens turn a gorgeous rust color toward early fall. Francoise Maurice waited on pins and needles in Draguignan, France.

anxious wait
an orderly queue
of brachia

* * *

at the edge
the Covid epidemic
dandelion down

Richard Bailly described the taste and smell of a rainy autumn day in Fargo, North Dakota. Patrick Sweeney looked forward to a good night’s sleep with a traditional remedy of fungus and roots.

malt aroma
imminent heavy rainfall
rusty day

* * *

like an aspergil
the herbalist shakes the rain
out of pink valerian

Maria Teresa Piras admired rain-washed leaves in Serrenti, Italy. Masumi Orihara juxtaposed heartrending news with the sounds of knocking heads of grain and drying leaves calling for a change of seasons. Zahra Mughis set sail as autumn prepared to leave Lahore, Pakistan.

autumn rain--
the bright green
of olive leaves

* * *

Afghan motherland
fierce struggle for survival
the soft rustling wheat

* * *

sailing
downstream
leaf boat

An official “autumn leaves day” in Japan is set by observing a sampling of maple trees. That auspicious day is declared when the majority of leaves are observed to have turned red. Vance and Pippa Philips, respectively, are watching for the first leaf to fall.

somersaulting
over backyard trampoline
shadows of maple trees

* * *

bus stop--
how long
before the leaf falls

John S. Gilbertson has his sights set on the last leaf in Greenville, South Carolina. An ophthalmologist looked Kanematsu directly in the eyes. Vandana Parashar avoided her dad’s glare in Panchkula, India. Rosa Maria di Salvatore described the moon to an ailing family member in Catania, Italy. Adjei Agyei-Baah entered a staring contest in Kumasi, Ghana.

top leaves
last to see sun
fall farthest

* * *

Face to face
with an oculist
my blurred sight

* * *

another business trip
I hide
father’s glasses

* * *

veiled moon...
grandpa’s cataract
is getting worse

* * *

full-blown moon
the prolonged stare
of a chimney cat

Henryk Czempiel foresees an accident in Strzelce Opolskie, Poland. Ram Chandran noticed sharp-edged shadows in Madurai, India. Dan Iulian has loved autumn for a lifetime in Bucharest, Romania.

Thunder moon
shadows of the felled trees
on the residence

* * *

palm fronds
split the moon--
patterns on the floor

* * *

the moon in the sky
a lifelong friend
leaves in the wind

Michael Lindenhofer watched oarsmen methodically dip their blades in gold on the Danube River. Santos heard the sound of crumbling dry leaves earlier than usual this year because of extreme drought conditions in California. McHarg spent time alone. Jim Niffen fell silent in Sioux Falls, South Dakota.

morning row
eight golden oars’
synchronous play

* * *

morning walk
under my feet the crunch
of dried leaves

* * *

The quietness:
A rustle of leaves
In solitude

* * *

autumn moon
glides across a
silent pond

Bona M. Santos loves walking when colored leaves fall. Jacob Blumner went hiking in Flint, Michigan. Rose Menyon Heflin sketched the windblown dry prairies to the south of Madison, Wisconsin.

morning hush
the gentle caress
of falling leaves

* * *

crossing a dry creek
the footbridge
makes the only sound

* * *

Gently swaying grasses
Wind and lightning on the plains
Thunderous silence

Priti Khullar’s love parched during a drought between the two annual monsoons that cloud over Noida, India. Sushama Kapur awakened suddenly in Pune, India.

Land fissures
barren clouds
drained our hearts

* * *

eerie silence
tapping my window
a dry branch

Neither Bakhtiyar Amini in Duesseldorf, Germany, nor Zdenka Mlinar in Zagreb, Croatia, got much sleep last night.

Insomnia--
keeping the moon
with my gaze

* * *

full moon
in my bed
insomnia

Ozment rests in peace with insects. Kanematsu slept knowing his garden is secure. Parashar hesitated for a moment before locking her door. Aljosa Vukovic feared the sound of insects.

Sweet sleep not a care
On my headboard deep in prayer
Guardian mantis

* * *

Day and night
guarding the garden
sunflowers

* * *

curfew--
the night still alive
with chirping crickets

* * *

After a horror movie
even the cricket sounds
like the devil

No haikuist could have foretold such strange seasonal deviations from reading poetry almanacs. Wondering whether winter will ever return, Carl Brennan referred to the “The Tragic History of the Life and Death of Doctor Faustus” performed in 1592. His haiku was inspired by the doctor’s longing for the devilish power to grant a woman’s request for a bunch of fresh grapes even though it was January.

Floorboards splintered
Hell’s melodrama rises
Faustus abjures his books

According to Wakayama Prefecture travel guides, the peak day for viewing red leaves was Dec. 14 last year; a half-century ago it was mid-November. This year haikuists might wait until Christmas to spot colored leaves. Lenard D. Moore noted how seasonal sports have gone topsy-turvy in North Carolina.

Christmas Day--
all the tennis shoes squeak
on the b-ball court

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

Climate change has changed the haiku seasons at http://www.asahi.com/ajw/special/haiku/. The next issues of the Asahi Haikuist Network appear Oct. 1, 15, and 29. Readers are invited to send haiku about apples, lemons or mandarin oranges 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).