crescent moon over the water a salmon leapt
--Keith Evetts (Thames Ditton, England)

* * *

a fruit stall
where I can buy
the red planet
--Yasir Farooq (Karachi, Pakistan)

* * *

crabapples
rinsed by rain she gathers
the windfall
--Xenia Tran (Nairn, Scotland)

* * *

it is not me
beneath the crabapple tree
an old man
--Albert Schepers (Windsor, Ontario)

* * *

temptation
the preacher
says it couldn’t have been an apple
--Wilda Morris (Chicago, Illinois)

* * *

the gentle fondling
of each harvest apple--
displaced refugees
--Richard L. Matta (San Diego, California)

* * *

A sugar apple
tasted like milk
sliding down the throat
--Che-Yu Lee (New Taipei, Taiwan)

* * *

Apple crushed
missing lost freedoms
Hong Kongers
--Satoru Kanematsu (Nagoya)

* * *

only certain fruit
boats in South China Sea
mandarin law
--Robin Rich (Sussex, England)

* * *

an approving snort...
the horse’s dry tongue takes the
apple from my hand
--Rp Verlaine (New York, New York)

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

songs in park
sunshine-filled laughter
raise me up
--Sergio DeMiglio (Toronto, Ontario)

The haikuist spent a great autumn day, he said, “singing in a park with friends on a glorious sunny day.” They likely crooned Dean Martin’s 1953 love song that begins, “When the moon hits your eye like a big pizza pie, that’s amore.” Satoru Kanematsu heard that the moon is made of green cheese. Germina Melius picked apples in Castries, Saint Lucia.

Topping on
my big pizza pie…
a full moon

* * *

taste buds aroused
children chattering about
the fate of an apple pie

Schepers dearly recalled a once familiar aroma. Giuliana Ravaglia reminisced. Maya Daneva tasted mixed blessings. Kanematsu yearned for more youthful days.

bees and hummingbirds
and apple blossoms too
scent of grandma’s pie

* * *

apple pie...
scent of mom
in every room

* * *

tangy lemon tart
the child I have
never been

* * *

Green apple
if I could retrieve
my boyhood

At home in Kerala, India, Lakshmi Iyer tried to explain how a good farmer first grasps the ripe fruit in the hand before gently twisting its stem from the sky. Slobodan Pupovac admired a bumper citrus crop in Zagreb, Croatia.

backyard moon
child cries to fetch
the orange

* * *

full moon
hidden by the canopy
of ripe lemon

The pandemic has changed drinking and dining etiquette. Teiichi Suzuki now sprays his hands with alcohol at the bar where he once used a freshly steamed and scented towel to wipe his hands clean before drinking from precious jade-green glazed porcelain. Richard L. Matta looks forward to dipping his fingers in a washbowl after a fine meal in San Diego.

Savoring
sake and universe
in a celadon cup

* * *

pottery studio
kneading the clay
for our lemon bowl

Kristen Lindquist began an after-dinnertime story in Camden, Maine.

blood moon
the childhood expectation
of dragons

Melius loves storytelling; the gifted author published “The Apple Tree,” a collection of 11 heart-breaking short stories. Junko Saeki whispered lyrics by Michiko Namiki (1921-2001): “With my lips close to a red apple, I gaze into the blue skies in silence”

one bite from an apple
the homeless man
finds heaven

* * *

breath of fresh air into
the war-torn nation--
“The Song of the Apple”

Yutaka Kitajima warned that wild boars and bears are on the prowl in Joetsu, Niigata Prefecture; rewilding is replacing the dwindling human population. White-tailed deer ventured out of the deep woods in Peterborough, Ontario, to check Sue Colpitts’ rewilded orchard.

Harvest moon
electrical fence
around farms

* * *

fruitless...
deer keep checking
the old apple tree

Sanae Kagaya referred to a demilitarized zone, patrolled by United Nations Peacekeeping Forces following the Turkish invasion of Cyprus.

buffer zone in cyprus
fruiting
mandarin orange

Lee responded to the embargo of Taiwan’s pineapples last spring and its apples this autumn with a haiku.

Eat wax apples
The unsellable delicacies
of farmers in trouble

Goran Gatalica mourned at home in Croatia; three weeks later he watched as the farm was sold.

after her funeral...
sheltered in quarantine
new moon

* * *

farm auction...
talking to trees
last quarter moon

Liz Gibbs reported on a casualty during a war to protect a farm from marauders in Calgary, Alberta.

stuffing and stitches
on the battlefield of corn
a murder of crows

Angela Giordano grew hot under the collar in Avigliano, Italy. Roberta Beach Jacobson’s eyes reddened in Indianola, Iowa. Suzuki tired of hiding indoors to avoid brain fog. Tsanka Shishkova released her anxieties in Sofia. Lilia Racheva reflected in Rousse, Bulgaria.

soldiers at war...
women mow wheat
thinking of the enemy

* * *

ghost stories
around the campfire
billows of smoke

* * *

Autumn fog--
looking for an exit
from self-isolation

* * *

Lockdown
I let my kite
fly free

* * *

Puddles--
apples dancing
atop clouds

Daneva contemplated taking the plunge in The Netherlands.

one on one
mid-bridge
the ripples and I

Dozens of Dutch tried to paddle across the North Sea to England during World War II, unfolding skin-on-frame kayaks made of woven fabric and birch trees on beaches in the dead of night. Ravaglia navigated an eddy in Bologna, Italy. J.L. Huffman commemorated the anniversary of the Nov. 7, 1811, Battle of Tippecanoe with a haiku.

nutshell...
still on the rapids
my canoe

* * *

kayakers
wrestle the rapids-battle
of Tippecanoe

Bob Friedland has bicycled every day since he returned from duty overseas.

After the war, I
Had a repainted red bike,
With fleece seat, and solid tires

Devoshruti Mandal lapped up colorful Varanasi, India. Anthony Q. Rabang was tossed and turned on the way to Baguio City, Philippines. Verlaine freshened up in New York, New York. Stephen J. DeGuire squinted in Los Angeles. Matta squirmed.

dusk sky...
into orange juice
a tiny tongue

* * *

nauseous
peeling oranges
on a zigzagging road

* * *

the lemon
she squirts on her breasts
after cutting fish

* * *

apple red--
a twist of citrus
in the eye

* * *

juicing a lemon--
the masseuse
digs deeper

DeGuire and Huffman, respectively, relished the simple pleasure of painting contrasting objects. Lee’s acquaintance remained demure in Hualian.

still life with
red orange yellow--
fruit basket

* * *

a loaf of bread
fruit laden table
still life

* * *

Satsuki Azalea
The shy face turned red
As the blossom

Stoianka Boianova was surprised by what peered out from grapevines in Sofia, Bulgaria. Mona Bedi in Delhi, India, and Anne-Marie McHarg in London, England, respectively, enjoyed a glass filled with the taste of autumn fruits. Torontonian Marshall Hryciuk celebrated a change of address on his mailing labels.

scarecrow’s head
above the picked grapes
autumn vineyards

* * *

vineyard picnic
over shimmery red wine
he proposes

* * *

Last rays of day fall
Over wine red rippling sea
Sailboats on fire

* * *

that red merlot
with a blue butterfly label
takes ice-cubes

The 11th Setouchi-Matsuyama International Photo-Haiku Contest supported by The Asahi Shimbun offers readers the chance to win a prize for taking photos and writing haiku about the sea. Enter online until Jan. 12: (http://matsuyamahaiku.jp/contest/free_eng/entry/).

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

The next issue of the Asahi Haikuist Network appears Nov. 19. Readers are invited to send haiku related to COP26, the United Nations Climate Change Conference, 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).