making life a mouthful Banggai cardinalfish
--R.C. Thomas (Plymouth, U.K.)

* * *

whale songs
touchstone poetry
of a shadowy sea
--C.F. Tash (Washington, D.C.)

* * *

Mud on the snow
a cat treads lightly
on broken shadows
--Mike Fainzilber (Rehovot, Israel)

* * *

tiresome day--
a harvest mouse chases
its own shadow
--Milan Rajkumar (Imphal, India)

* * *

Fireplace crackles
nezumi roommates return
domestic dispute
--Charles Ramsbotham (Uchinada, Ishikawa)

* * *

Early winter
just falling asleep
I’m all ears
--Murasaki Sagano (Tokyo)

* * *

cold moon wine
nevertheless
my hosts generous
--Brendan Duffin (Cork, Ireland)

* * *

evening stillness
echo of his steps crossing
on the iron bridge
--Mike Gallagher (Ballyduff, Ireland)

* * *

Suburban skyline
It was once a jagged scar
Now drowned in snowfall
--David Toohey (Yokkaichi, Mie)

* * *

To grow wizened rings
within their cores / dying leaves
from each tree must fall
--Mary Louise Kiernan (Rock Tavern, New York)

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

The ventriloquist
is dead. In the easychair
his puppet, relaxed.
--Horst Ludwig (Seattle, Washington)

The haikuist can’t sleep. Every time he tries to talk like he thinks God wants him to, he hears a narrative voice: “in comes Nietzsche declaring God is dead.” He compares this drama in his mind to stagecraft between a ventriloquist and his dummy.

Today’s column is about shadows. Shadow puppet performers tell stories by moving puppets attached by wires to sticks in front of a light to make shadows on a screen. Adjei Agyei-Baah listened to a storyteller in Kumasi, Ghana. Marcie Wessels noticed an observant child in San Diego, California.

storytime under moonlight
the scarecrow’s shadow
also present

* * *

waiting in line--
a toddler hops
on her long shadow

Kay Miller caught a moment of inspiration.

an idea
lit sparkler sizzling
until gone

Carolyn Crossley was caught by surprise in Greater Manchester, U.K.

The darkness
comes like a fearsome
grip--black crow

Marcellin Dallaire-Beaumont will have to get ready for the early start of the winter solstice on Dec. 21--the longest night of the year in Brussels, Belgium.

cold red hands
first hot chocolate
the dusk so early

Pippa Phillips will likely be watching the horizon at 7:14 a.m. on Dec. 21 in St. Louis, Missouri. On that day the northern hemisphere will tilt as far away from the sun as possible and cast the longest shadows. A Sethuramiah can observe the soft glowing light in the sky when the sun is just below the horizon in Bangalore, India.

fool’s gold--
the long shadow
of sunrise

* * *

twilight drags
long shadows
into the night

Ashoka Weerakkody will pick up the pace in Colombo, Sri Lanka. Angela Giordano plans to follow her pet in Avigliano, Italy.

solstice
evening we jogged too fast
the lagging sun

* * *

with my dog
running along the river--
always one step ahead

Lorelyn De la Cruz Arevalo recalls her Lola’s patience in Bombon, Philippines.

winnowing basket
one by one grandma picks out
tiny stones from rice grains

Parashar dreads the longest night of the year. Eva Limbach said she “loves to be alone” and “celebrate Christmas only with my husband, but…” in Saarbrucken, Germany.

in-law’s visit
even the spiders don’t have
anywhere to hide

* * *

family getaway
the mouse holes I wanted
to hide in

Junichiro Tanizaki praised the traditional outdoor Japanese toilet as a perfect place to hide or listen to the chirping of insects or the song of birds. In some houses, the toilet is located at the end of a long corridor lined with tatami mats. On the way back from the toilet, one can pause to view the moon, or to enjoy any of those poignant moments that mark the change of the seasons. In his seminal essay written in 1933, “In Praise of Shadows,” he surmised, “Here, I suspect, is where haiku poets over the ages have come by a great many of their ideas. Indeed one could with some justice claim that of all the elements of Japanese architecture, the toilet is the most aesthetic.”

Anne-Marie McHarg tried to hide from moonlight. The toilet is the only place Satoru Kanematsu can turn off the light at his hospital room in Nagoya.

Moon shadow
Stretches--
Over the lake

* * *

Nurse station
light on all the time
a long night

Helga Stania listened to gravestones cast long shadows in the stillness of Ettiswil, Switzerland.

at the graveyard
an altered silence--
first snow

Slobodan Pupovac dared not reach into the darkness of his home in Zagreb, Croatia. Masumi Orihara recalled an unpleasant memory from her childhood home in Atsugi, Kanagawa Prefecture.

empty mousetrap
under
the bedroom bed

* * *

Snap!
shuts the mousetrap
echoing squeak

J.L. Huffman knows who moved her cheese in Wilkesboro, North Carolina.

barn hidey-hole
moldy cheese rind scraps
hick mouse delight

Marcellin Dallaire-Beaumont saved an otherwise dark night in Brussels, Belgium.

new moon
we rescue the mouse
fallen in the pool

Natalia Kuznetsova entered a cold old home in Moscow, Russia.

grandma’s house
lifeless but for the mice...
they must miss her too

Dejan Ivanovic’s heater shut off in Lazarevac, Serbia.

poor heating
the mouse will seek salvation
in the barn tonight

Archie Carlos entered the Cu Chi tunnels in Ho Chi Minh City that were used during the Vietnam War.

Cu Chi tunnels
a taste of boiled cassava
the old uncles had

Kimberly A. Horning lives in Jacksonville, Florida, the site of a new museum of science and technology building designed to show the movement and flow of water. Nonetheless, she seems jealous of the magnificent spiral ramp design of the art museum in New York City.

City mouse--
running rings around
the Guggenheim

Stephen J. DeGuire walked down a dark alley in Los Angeles. Kiyoshi Fukuzawa spotted a dark intruder in Tokyo.

street corner--
urban rodents run
the backstreets

* * *

A country mouse
dashed under the stock peanuts
faint my shadow

Without a moon to cast a shadow onto the pristine snow in Joetsu, Niigata Prefecture, Yutaka Kitajima fears that many field mice will be caught unawares. Albert Schepers fears a daytime bird of prey over Windsor, Ontario.

New moon
the owl starts out
by stealth

* * *

stop little mouse
watch with me
the red-tailed hawk

Penned with difficulty and a shaky hand, this was Kanematsu’s first haiku mailed after having spent many long nights in hospital.

ICU
next to life and death
scary chill

Giordano noted an overnight change in someone’s character.

dawn light--
the dark side
emerges

Rob Goss wrote this haiku at the start of a summer romance in Tokyo. Realizing it wasn’t meant to last, he appended three more lines.

the darkness sweats
cicada calls
our sweet nothings

* * *

darkness rising…
thinking
her words

Vandana Parashar admired a winter sheen in Panchkula, India.

mid-December
the whiteness of coconut oil
in her hair

Lori Kiefer relived a warmer moment spent outdoors in London, U.K. Francis Attard believes it is best to count your blessings and look at the bright, sunny side of life in Marsa, Malta.

warm olive oil
al fresco conversation
in the sun

* * *

autumn equinox
for one thing the blissful
on soldiers’ faces

Fainzilber noted that low-cost tomatoes--unlike expensive grapes--are drinkable fruits. Charlie Smith’s wife topped off a festive meal--but didn’t blow the family budget--in Raleigh, North Carolina.

fermenting tomatoes
the ketchup
of wine

* * *

Turkey day
last minute dessert
pumpkin Twinkies

Kimberly Kuchar attended a recital in Austin, Texas.

third valve sticking...
after oiling
smooth jazz from his trumpet

Mark Meyer shared a dark secret before this year’s Hanukkah festival on Mercer Island, Washington.

guilty pleasures
the carols we sang
in Hebrew school

Tony Williams likely included this poor lad in his prayers in Glasgow, Scotland.

closing my eyes
the choirboy
fluffs a note

Roberta Beach Jacobson couldn’t resist choral singing in Indianola, Iowa.

Christmas carols
we can’t help but sing
along

Marta Chocilowska felt her soul was uplifted in Warsaw, Poland. Kiyoshi Fukuzawa loitered awhile. Elancharan Gunasekaran sang an extra line in Singapore.

midnight mass
the five-pointed star
over the carolers

* * *

Christmas songs
linger on the street…
missionaries return home

* * *

chorister sings
a note higher
from across the river
bodies sway

Jerome Berglund loves jazz notes.

retiring clydesdale
Chet Baker
in Tokyo

Sandra Simpson noted it’s warming up in Tauranga, New Zealand.

Christmas eve--
the tuba player
mops his brow

Bona M. Santos went snorkeling off the coast of Los Angeles.

breathing space
air bubbles
above the kelp forest

Humpback whales migrate several thousand miles, across the Pacific Ocean from Australia to Ecuador. When they move together in pods they sing, likely to attract mates. The melody of these whale songs are emulated by younger males and constantly updated because the newer versions are more popular among females, according to marine biologists at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland.

The haikuist petro c. k. peered down into the ocean depths off Seattle, Washington. Masumi Orihara says she understands why “people enjoy whale watching and protest against whaling.”

alien worlds
deep in blackness
where no stars are

* * *

avante-garde
whale song stirs
deep blue sea

Gunasekaran had hoped to hear more from a singing group of whales. McHarg held her breath.

pods plea
for one last song
nets filled with silence

* * *

Silence within silence
A pod of orcas gliding
Frozen icescape

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Readers are invited to enter as many photo-haiku about the sea as they can to the 12th Matsuyama International Photo-Haiku Contest supported by The Asahi Shimbun, at this online site: (https://matsuyamahaiku.jp/contest/free_eng/).

* * *

The next issue of the Asahi Haikuist Network appears Dec. 30. Readers are invited to send haiku about light 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 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).