a whisk of wings--following the trail of partridge feathers at dawn
--Angela Giordano (Avigliano, Italy)

* * *

shooting offseason
geese flying
in sunset colors
--Elena Malec (Irvine, California)

* * *

Whistling…
my father was a bird hunter
all his life
--Goran Gatalica (Zagreb, Croatia)

* * *

deer eyes
through the electric fence
fiery gaze
--Masumi Orihara (Atsugi, Kanagawa Prefecture)

* * *

hunter’s moon…
looking for
that perfect stranger
--Keith Evetts (Thames Ditton, England)

* * *

in need
of a scarecrow
sunflower seeds
--Roberta Beach Jacobson (Indianola, Iowa)

* * *

Harvesters
in the war-torn wheatfield
grains of truth
--Myron Lysenko (Woodend, Australia)

* * *

early summer
wheat grains spill
from the harvester
--Marilyn Humbert (Sydney, Australia)

* * *

collection
of old postage stamps
my son’s love
--Zdenka Mlinar (Zagreb, Croatia)

* * *

emails!
how I miss the feel
of a postage stamp
--Mona Bedi (Delhi, India)

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

scarecrow
I thought I told you
to keep it to yourself
--Patrick Sweeney (Misawa, Aomori Prefecture)

The haikuist muttered to himself. Henryk Czempiel spoke to a strawman in Strzelce Opolskie, Poland.

grass pollen
a little boy hands a mask
to the scarecrow

Pat Geyer’s ears were burning in East Brunswick, New Jersey.

we once wrote letters;
very loud, the silence of
an empty mail truck

World Post Day was first recognized by the Universal Postal Union at a congress held in Tokyo in 1969 to commemorate the Oct. 9, 1874, establishment of a post office in Bern, Switzerland. Robin Rich knew someone who enjoyed philately.

rustling through
old stamp collection
autumn funeral

Murasaki Sagano exchanged seasonal greeting cards with a friend for a few years, noting “her cards were painted. Mine were English haiku.”

Sumie dragonfly
in dim light on a postcard
soul in dark gradation

Evetts received a reminder by mail.

birthday card
the envelope franked
by the Alzheimer’s Society

Thinking about international airmail, which is the prompt for this week’s column, Miera Rao employed a simile in her haiku. Matching this haiku with a photograph of a postmark would create a photo-haiku. Pairing it with a real postage stamp could really make this poem fly.

like swallows they fly
across continents--
no border walls

Teiichi Suzuki treasured a memorial stamp issued by Matto, Ishikawa Prefecture, that depicted poetess Chiyojo (1703-1776) alongside her autograph haiku: asagao ya tsurube torarete morai mizu.

A morning glory!
the well-bucket entangled,
I ask for water

* * *

A morning glory--
on a hometown postage stamp
Chiyojo Kaga

Carmela Marino harvested large seeds from morning glory vines growing in Rome, Italy--comparing them to growths on the adrenal glands that swell in size with age.

hypomea seeds
in my act the size
of the tumor

While looking through artifacts from a yesteryear fad, Masumi Orihara reminisced the “good old days when we patiently waited for the return mail in Japan.” Krzysztof Kokot recalled when postage only cost only one cent to get to Nowy Targ, Poland. At six cents, Horst Ludwig recalled the best of days in Seattle, Washington.

faded five-yen stamp
a childhood recollection
from an old penpal

* * *

president’s face--
on the yellowed envelope
one-cent stamp

* * *

Love letter
with two 3 cent stamps -- those
were the days, my friend

C.X. Turner noticed a change in the wind from Birmingham, U.K.

walking alone
the scent of heather
on the wane

Slobodan Pupovac waited for his dog to bring the mail in Zagreb, Croatia. Vandana Parashar will soon take year-end greeting cards to the post office in Panchkula, India.

deja vu
the dog waits for the postman
at the fence gate

* * *

Christmas holidays
she licks
the back of a stamp

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The next issue of the Asahi Haikuist Network appears on Oct. 21. Readers are invited to send haiku about wine 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 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 The International University of Kagoshima, 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: “Teaching and Learning Haiku in English” (2022); “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).