I’ve never pulled out the eyes of a stuffed rabbit
--Moldovan Mircea (Jibou, Romania)

* * *

avoiding shadow
of the lawnmower
bunny
--Roberta Beach Jacobson (Indianola, Iowa)

* * *

winter sun
the iron gate
makes snowflake shadows
--Padraig O’Morain (Dublin, Ireland)

* * *

Snow alley…
paperboy’s footsteps
approaching
--Satoru Kanematsu (Nagoya)

* * *

meditation
the weight of light
on my face
--Ranice Tara (Delhi, India)

* * *

rhubarb crowns
dessert
fit for kings
--Lorraine Carey (Kerry, Ireland)

* * *

potpourri
in gris-gris bag
pocket-full of posies
--Jerome Berglund (Minneapolis, Minnesota)

* * *

my son’s tears
for the rabbit we ran over...
world peace
--Sebastien Revon (Cork, Ireland)

* * *

broken
china rabbit mimics the cat
not these (y)ears
--Robin Rich (Brighton, England)

* * *

about time…
to the Year of the Rabbit
hop, step, jump
--Masumi Orihara (Atsugi, Kanagawa)

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

a fresh beginning
rabbit leads the way ahead
vigilant
--Eduard Schmidt-Zorner (Killarney, Ireland)

The haikuist can celebrate the new Year of the Rabbit from Jan. 22, 2023, until Feb. 9, 2024. Keith Evetts stopped celebrating from Jan. 2 in Thames Ditton, U.K.

after a day
we stop calling the year new
winter wind

Richard Thomas in Plymouth, U.K., and Kanematsu in Nagoya, respectively, noted how this new year is racing ahead.

flying fish dandelions
marlins chase
each wish

* * *

Fallen leaves
chasing fallen leaves
windy race

Claire Ninham caught her breath in North Yorkshire, U.K.

New Year walk…
pausing, my shadow and the oak’s
become one

Mario Massimo Zontini took an early morning jaunt in Parma, Italy. Kanematsu was delighted to see some color during the New Year.

Whiter is
the snow in the fields
at daybreak

* * *

Back at home
after an absence--
winter mums

Jessica Allyson takes gentle care of indoor flowers at home in Ottawa, Canada.

white orchid’s
innocence in bloom
a New Year

Writing from home in New York, Laurence Raphael Brothers conveyed the feeling of rabbits “blissfully cozy and warm, safe in their burrows while a storm rages outside.”

winter’s biting wind
howls outside our warm snug den
cuddling till spring

Ann Smith lives in West Wales, U.K., just across the water from a nature reserve on Skomer Island.

in the dark burrow
the bright eyes
of hope

Anne-Marie McHarg started her year off in London, England, with a lively pattern of beats made up of stressed and unstressed syllables. John Pappas spotted movement in Boston, Massachusetts.

Ears prick nose twitches
Bunny hop hopping rabbits
Hop into New Year

* * *

first flakes--
deep in the brush the twitch
of a rabbit’s nose

On a recent visit to Lake Union in Seattle, Washington, Brandon Favre observed winter geese slowly swim up to passersby on shore and honk a short acknowledgment.

Overcast morning
The lake’s guardian greets us
With a polite honk

A French druggist, Revon knows well the dangers of a virus that spreads via wild rabbits.

Myxomatosis--
powerless in front of
the evening news

Ninham’s heart beat faster.

in sync
with the midnight fireworks
my tachycardia

Yasir Farooq washed before saying prayers in Karachi, Pakistan.

the mosque
while I’m performing ablution
the rabbits play

Angela Giordano in Avigliano, Italy, and Helga Stania in Ettiswil, Switzerland, respectively, look forward to many lucky years ahead. Tsanka Shishkova believes luck is going to be just around the corner no matter which way she turns in Sofia, Bulgaria.

year of the rabbit:
in the lines of the palm
so much luck

* * *

a calf licks
my lifeline--
year of the rabbit

* * *

even in the dark
a good direction can be found
the year of the rabbit

Barbara Anna Gaiardoni warns against memory loss in Verona, Italy.

first calm
the ancient potion
of forgetting

John Hamley was reminded that one of his granddads fought for White Finland and the other joined the Finnish Socialist Workers’ Republic during Finland’s transition from a grand duchy of the Russian Empire to an independent state.

Grandfathers
red and white
one survived

Danijela Grbelja is cautious about what the year might bring to Sibenik, Croatia.

year of the rabbit--
one tiger is waiting
new memories

Writing from Sydney, Australia, Marilyn Humbert alludes to a metaphorical idiom for an important topic.

peace talks
a white rabbit
in the room

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

The next issues of the Asahi Haikuist Network appear Feb. 3 and 17. Readers are invited to send haiku related to good or bad luck 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).