ready to change the world first snowflakes
--Eva Limbach (Saarbrucken, Germany)

* * *

up too late
bouncing snow
off my nose
--Alan Summers (Wiltshire, England)

* * *

two kids
running after soap bubbles...
New Year balloons
--Taofeek Ayeyemi (Lagos, Nigeria)

* * *

glaciers of Rainier
seen from above
a white chrysanthemum
--Sherry Reniker (Kent, Washington)

* * *

ice core
all that remains
of a glacier
--Victor Ortiz (Bellingham, Washington)

* * *

the sun emerges
in the snow a fallen leaf
sinks deep
--Sheila Weaver (Gibsons, British Columbia)

* * *

first snow--
the dandelion stalk
blooms again
--Hifsa Ashraf (Rawalpindi, Pakistan)

* * *

First hoarfrost--
welcome back indoors
potted ferns
--Satoru Kanematsu (Nagoya)

* * *

dark winter
in a global cocoon
itching to get out
--Masumi Orihara (Atsugi, Kanagawa)

* * *

first winter
a young novice praying
in her cell
--Natalia Kuznetsova (Moscow, Russia)

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

snowfall...
my watercolors untouched
and my paper blank
--Ana Drobot (Bucharest, Romania)

The haikuist inhaled before making her first brushstroke. T.D. Ginting paused before composing his first haiku this year in Yachiyo, Chiba Prefecture. John S. Gilbertson inked his first haiku of the year with a fountain pen in Greenville, South Carolina.

the blank page--
the cursor
(b)linking for no word

* * *

pen drinks a fill
never worrying
if words will come

Devoshruti Mandal rang in the New Year playing melodic percussion on a set of metal bowls filled with water in Varanasi, India.

jalataranga
on tiny waves
silvery moon

Anna Goluba was inspired by a child in Warsaw, Poland. Paul Faust was awakened in Ashiya, Hyogo Prefecture. Kamil Plich was lost in thought for a few minutes in Lubeck, Germany.

Awakening
After years in a coma
Fresh snow

* * *

day after cold day
singular colored bleak sky
suddenly the snow

* * *

brewing tea
I forgot about the time...
first snowfall

Michael Lindenhofer was working at home in Linz, Austria, during a lockdown when the first snow fell and his “garden turned into a picture book.” Kathleen Vasek Trocmet read between the lines in New Braunfels, Texas.

fresh snow--
on a secret mission
neighbor’s cat

* * *

Journal...
the missing pages
tell their story

Zdenka Mlinar enjoyed a first walk in Zagreb, Croatia. Teiichi Suzuki was inspired by the surreal imagery of the first sunbeams filtering through the trees to kiss the ground in Osaka.

first steps
a game
with rotten leaves

* * *

Komorebi--
a dead tree dreaming
of rebirth

Brendan Hewitt let the air out of the Christmas decorations at his home in Nova Scotia. Robin Rich groggily entered his first warm bath of the year encircled by rubber ducks in Brighton, England.

inflatable Santa
ducks behind a shrub
better be good

* * *

ducks bobbing
alongside sleepily
morning bath

Orihara sailed away on an island vacation. Christina Chin waited for her ship to arrive in Kuching, Malaysia.

cruise ship’s porthole
islands roll in stormy seas
tempest in the bathtub

* * *

dockyard crowd
fresh arrival
of mandarin oranges

Ashoka Weerakkody struggled with social distancing in Colombo, Sri Lanka.

safety first
a tandem for one
vacation

Pippa Phillips followed a wrong path in St. Louis, Missouri. Lisbeth Ho breathed easy in a normal way in Salatiga, Indonesia.

eraserhead shavings--
fresh snow covers
our missteps

* * *

lemon fragrance
strolling along the orchard
in the new normal

Kanematsu smiled knowingly when he spotted a young single man at a shrine hiding behind a blooming Japanese camellia bush to pen a prayer on a small wooden votive tablet.

Sasanquas
hanging secretly
love ema

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

Readers have until Jan. 12 to enter a haiku and a photo for the 11th Matsuyama International Photo-Haiku Contest supported by The Asahi Shimbun, at this online site: http://www.matsuyamahaiku.jp/contest/free_eng/entry/.

The next issue of the Asahi Haikuist Network appears Jan. 21. Readers are invited to send haiku for the Year of the Tiger 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).