a scarecrow amidst huge flames on a burning pyre
--Devoshruti Mandal (Varanasi, India)

* * *

burning heath
somewhere in the distance
a pheasant’s cry
--Marek Printer (Kielce, Poland)

* * *

burnt furze
I carry a frog to the stream
where it drowns
--Padraig O’Morain (Dublin, Ireland)

* * *

Remembering
stubble burning on the farm
my eyes water
--Karen Harvey (Pwllheli, North Wales)

* * *

old letter box
gathers more dust
winter twilight
--Hifsa Ashraf (Rawalpindi, Pakistan)

* * *

nearing the end
of his life
the goldfish vendor
--Patrick Sweeney (Misawa, Aomori)

* * *

Smoke hangs low over fields
In hushed spring air
Beaters slumped like wet sacks
--Sara P. Dias (Cape Town, South Africa)

* * *

wood against wood
farmer invokes wild spirits
burning fields
--Ashoka Weerakkody (Colombo, Sri Lanka)

* * *

apples bake on trees
in climate’s killing heat
forest fires
-- Meghan Elizabeth Jones (Calgary, Alberta)

* * *

slash and burn
the farmers sing
harvest moon
--H. Yin Mon (Yangon, Myanmar)

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

Sapphire blue skies
dawn awakens as
my world unfolds
--Anne-Marie McHarg (London, England)

The haikuist held her breath as a blue morning glory unfurled autumn. In Rawalpindi, Pakistan, Ashraf unwound winter wool with a whirling dervish-inspired design.

deep winter fog
unraveling
mom’s old scarf

Haikuists from springtime climes recount fire whirls on farms, whirling waterspouts on beaches, twirling winds in the desert, and twisting typhoons and circling cyclones in the oceans. Nani Mariani felt the heat in Melbourne, Australia. Dias spun a tale of burning farmers’ fields in Cape Town, South Africa. Justice Joseph Prah reasons that mankind is only one step ahead of climate crisis in Accra, Ghana.

disturbing
sun and universe
the greenhouse

* * *

Whirling fires, a windless day--
beans, then grains, then beans turn to ash
Nature spins on spring’s graves

* * *

farm path
same road taken
by wildfire

Fires set to deforest areas in the Amazon also dried coffee plantation flowers until they turned pink, shriveled and fell off. Extreme heat caused water levels to recede along the Parana river in Argentina. The Jaime river still runs clear at Julia Guzman’s parents’ picturesque town of Salsacate in the Traslasierra valley of Argentina. Robin Rich watched in awe as a large group of butterflies took flight.

the sound of leaves
by the river bank--
a tasty piece of bread

* * *

arable farm
a rabble steal the sky
earth on fire

When the above haiku from the southern hemisphere are read together with haiku from the equator, we can sense the sea change in climate affecting the entire globe. Christina Chin clarified that her eating utensils are made from grass, not trees, in Borneo. She explained that birds, as well as the insects and amphibians they feed upon, live in rice fields not only when they are flooded but also after the harvest in Kuching, Malaysia.

bamboo grass
chopsticks protests
NGOs bark up the wrong tree

* * *

wintering white egrets
roost on the scarecrows
paddy fields

Xenia Tran lives in Scotland where United Nations Climate Change Conference delegates recently pledged to reverse deforestation and cut methane emissions. Flooding rice fields prevents oxygen from penetrating the soil and encourages methane-emitting bacteria to grow.

COP26…
small seeds are sown
to save the forests

The autumn poems below complete a worldwide collection and form an alarming thesis of the harm inflicted by the manmade climate crisis. Weerakkody invoked a cosmic dance symbolizing rhythmic creation and destruction in Colombo, Sri Lanka. Mandal composes haiku in Varanasi, one of the oldest cities in the world where pilgrims come to bathe in the Ganges’ sacred waters and perform funeral rites.

dance of Shiva
farmer sets field aflame
holy fire

* * *

failed state--
turned to ashes
scarecrows

Heavy use of fossil fuels and burning chaff across India combined with the second-wettest monsoon ever this season. Heavy autumn rains lashed the subcontinent, triggering flash floods and landslides in the south. The synergetic effect prompted Mona Bedi to describe how polluted, wailing winds roiled a thick black smog over burnt fields before the dusk descended in Delhi.

burning fields
bringing in the sunset
clouds of smoke

Hoping to hear the sound of autumn insects, Teiichi Suzuki visited low-lying moors in Kansai that flooded during a heavy rain. Sweeney lived to tell a tale about poisonous fungi in Misawa, Aomori Prefecture. Kanematsu’s granddaughter returned from a school event that had been postponed. Masumi Orihara heard farmers explain that burning restores the soil, but she countered their views by saying “on the contrary, our Earth needs no more warming as it has been excessively heated.”

Exhausted marsh
becomes a corpse
of water

* * *

all day rain
a storybook mushroom
under the blackjack oak

* * *

Principal
singing with pupils
campfire flames

* * *

burning farmlands
warming no more
the creaky planet

Laurence Raphael Brothers drove from the lovely town of Soma to Iwaki, Fukushima Prefecture, on a protected highway through the radiation zone, noting, “While nature had lushly overgrown most of the roadside buildings, there were huge stretches off to the horizon where farmland had been razed to prevent radioactive food crops from growing wild.” The final line in his haiku warns survivors of the fall of civilization away from such contaminated places.

ten years have passed
fertile fields burned black
this is not a place of honor

Realizing black martins can sleep while flying and geese can sleep in one half of their brain while the other is awake, Lothar M. Kirsch got carried away thinking about an experiment in which a cat left in a box containing radioactive poison was simultaneously alive and dead.

Like Schrodinger’s cat
the ducks on the pool might be
awake or asleep

An extreme drought in southwest China combined with deforestation and encroaching farmlands caused elephants to wander away from their protective enclosures to find cooler and wetter climes further north. Chen Xiaoou hadn’t anticipated they would migrate past his home in Kunming, China. Anne-Marie Labelle questioned the loss of fish along China’s main waterways.

after-dinner stroll
extended to an epic journey
of 500 kilometers

* * *

on the Mekong
dams to reduce greenhouse gas
what’s left to cook?

Cloaked in black in Ettiswil, Switzerland, Helga Stania pondered the mysterious forces that are causing the universe to expand and unravel at ever-faster rates. Minko Tanev spotted a devilish flame twisting up from intense heat near a stable in Sofia, Bulgaria.

Crows
a clue of dark
energy

* * *

bright aura
through the fire whirlwind
silhouette of a horse

Heavy rains drowned forests in Germany. Eva Limbach in Saarbrucken, and Pitt Buerken in Munster, respectively, took different sides in a heated debate about how to clear farmland.

slash-and-burn
the guilelessness of
a new dawn

* * *

stubble field
finally the straw is
burned off

Alan Peat Biddulph said that he was repulsed by algae blooms and dead fish floating in rivers that flow into Lake Windermere in the Lake District National Park, United Kingdom. Tony Williams called fowl in Glasgow, Scotland. Keith Evetts lamented how long toxins linger in the atmosphere in Thames Ditton.

close-cropped banks--
the river
is blooming

* * *

a duck
trailing one leg
muggy day

* * *

burning the fields
things our forefathers
failed to see

Wieslaw Karlinski hopes to enjoy many more moonlit family evenings together in Namyslow, Poland. Printer lost sight of the moon because of the smog over Kielce. Quails can survive winter’s cold but not the heat from fires, noted Tsanka Shishkova in Sofia, Bulgaria. Mircea Moldovan knows what’s prowling around Jibou, Romania.

another full moon
granddaughter bakes her first
rice cakes

* * *

disappearing
over burning stubble
full moon

* * *

silent night
without the song of quails
burning stubble

* * *

burnt stubble
on the moon’s dark side…
footprints of a coyote

In Italy, Angela Giordano was awakened before sunrise by the smell of plowed fields. In Croatia, Goran Gatalica watched as a field was burnt at sundown to make way for a new crop.

scratches in the sky--
smoke from the stubble rises
in the autumn wind

* * *

after a long day
burning farmer’s field
in the silence

Mirela Brailean shed tears for a Romanian farmer. Serhiy Shpychenko’s lungs blackened in Kyiv, Ukraine. Dejan Ivanovic shrugged his shoulders in Lazarevac, Serbia.

burnt fields--
on the farmer’s blackened face
streaks of sweat

* * *

smoldering conflict--
between neighboring estates
a scorched field

* * *

Sounds of sirens
indifferent, grandpa wraps
tobacco in paper

Drought in the Canadian and American West prompted leaves to fall before they had a chance to redden. Germina Melius watched ballet-like movements at the floor of a naked tree. Bob Friedland savored the vestige of the season in Richmond, British Columbia. Lilia Racheva nostalgically recalled raking up a pile of leaves.

autumn dancers
wind lifts
the last leaf of an oak tree

* * *

Calvados, fiery
Spirit of apples we picked
Before the first frost

* * *

autumn wind--
the leaves await
my son’s bicycle

Severe hot and dry weather slashed grain farmers’ yields in half. Jones lamented the sudden loss of a whole village to wildfires in British Columbia shortly after temperatures soared to 50 degrees. Liz Gibbs didn’t think COP26 discussions will help reduce temperatures in Calgary, Alberta.

record heat
next day blazing fire
town of Lytton gone

* * *

climate conference
the room heats up
with conversations of change

In Marmora, Ontario, John Hamley used pruning shears to cut back the dead growth on a perennial that flowers feathery long plumes of creamy white tiny stars. Kristjaan Panneman introduced himself by the penname “Chevrefeuille,” which alludes to goat’s beard and honeysuckle flowers.

Old branches
black and ugly
goat’s beard blooms

* * *

flares of smoke
hiding the secrets of the field
seeds to sprout again

When extreme weather conditions pivoted from drought to severe thunderstorms in Texas, Melanie Vance decided to put on a tea cozy. Mary L. Leopkey felt indecisive about how to react to the weather in Gillies Bay, British Columbia. J.L. Huffman hung a white smock out to dry. Anna Goluba watched a hurricane gather clouds.

saving tea
for the soaked scarecrow
showers at the pumpkin patch

* * *

midnight deluge
wet above and below
geese dither

* * *

doctor’s scarecrow
warding off pandemic
lab coat talisman

* * *

Incoming storm
trembling shadow
scarecrow in the field

Jim Niffen wondered if the snow geese he saw in a small cornfield on a back road in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, would ever be able to migrate south.

traffic jam
snow geese honking in
a cornfield

Murasaki Sagano wondered what the world is coming to. Milan Rajkumar’s work is done. Tanev barbecued shish kebab. Henryk Czempiel watched glowing lights in the sky after the sun dipped below the horizon. Mona Iordan set fire to her past.

At sunset
what is he thinking?
the scarecrow

* * *

end of the harvest...
talking about seasons past
scarecrows in a huddle

* * *

embers in the field
between peppers and onions
the skewered bacon

* * *

straw in the mouth
the twilight sky burns
behind her house

* * *

burnt fields
my life now takes
a new turn

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

The next issues of the Asahi Haikuist Network appear Dec. 3, 17 and 31. Readers are invited to send haiku about fresh snow, fish soup or forgetting, 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).