unusually quiet morning a crow caws thrice
--Jerome Berglund (Minneapolis, Minnesota)

* * *

winter dawn--
two crows on a bare branch
waiting for godot
--Deborah A. Bennett (Carbondale, Illinois)

* * *

birds sing at sunrise
two rabbits in the alley
are joined by a dove
--J.D. Nelson (Lafayette, Colorado)

* * *

my new home…
blackbirds nest
in the rafters
--Charlotte Digregorio (Winnetka, Illinois)

* * *

old friend’s visit
the scent of magnolia
sweeter than usual
--Wai Mei Wong (Toronto, Ontario)

* * *

morning light
the beauty of a line
of parked cars
--Padraig O’Morain (Dublin, Ireland)

* * *

nearing dusk
from the group of crows
one turns back
--Govind Joshi (Dehradun, India)

* * *

“Why do crows cry so?”
girl’s song breaks the silence
evening sunlight
--Kiyoshi Fukuzawa (Tokyo)

* * *

in a sundown town
the darkest shadows are found
inside the white folks
--Dana Clark-Millar (Bend, Oregon)

* * *

cold moon--
starlight spills down
the hillside
--Maire Morrissey Cummins (Glengarriff, Ireland)

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

the days getting longer--
counting my blessings,
those in disguise, too
--Junko Saeki (Suginami, Tokyo)

The haikuist claimed, “I’m always a lucky girl.” Today is “setsubun” in Japan, the day before the spring season begins. Feb. 3 on the Gregorian calendar has been set as a holiday since 1873 for children to celebrate by throwing dry-roasted soybeans at teachers disguised as devils and shouting these five syllables: “Oni wa soto!” (“Out with the demons!”). The haikuist petro c.k. is superstitious in Seattle, Washington. Natalia Kuznetsova might turn back to her home to Moscow, Russia.

watching from
a safe distance
black cat

* * *

omens...
a black cat crossing my path
before the blind date

At midnight, Ashoka Weerakkody parked his vehicle in front of a giant banyan tree by the wayside to pray for safe passage from the elephant-headed demigod called “pulleyar” in Colombo, Sri Lanka.

auspicious hour
a lone elephant cuts ’em off
minefield dead ahead

Satoru Kanematsu treaded carefully last night in Nagoya. Yutaka Kitajima has to scrimp now that inflation has hit hard in Joetsu, Niigata Prefecture.

An owl’s hoot
among the bare trees
starlit night

* * *

Phooey
too thin a sandwich...
chilly buffet

Praying for peace in Bangkok, Thailand, Vasu Sankamnerd invoked a sun goddess to protect Japan and light the world with warmth and hope this year.

Rapid recovery
Rabbit and Amaterasu
Relight the world

Sherry Grant delighted her children in New Zealand with Taiwanese New Year traditional gifts.

red envelope
kids suddenly
courteous

Lantern festivals in Nagasaki and Yokohama will be held Feb. 5, the last day of Chinese Lunar New Year celebrations. Aljosa Vukovic wondered what to cook tomorrow night in Sibenik, Croatia. David Cox tucked into a steaming hot bun in Beijing.

rabbit recipes--
does anyone respect
the Chinese calendar

* * *

baozi--
tearing open
this year’s first gift

Simona Brinzaru walked in the darkness of Bucharest, Romania, after reading Umberto Eco’s “Fictional Woods.”

a light in the forest
is there the tiger’s eyes
or the pilgrim’s lantern?

Joshi screened a shadow play using a lantern. Ed Bremson similarly played in Raleigh, North Carolina.

oil lamp
hand crafted creatures’
shadows on the wall

* * *

across the wall
a hand shadow rabbit hops
and becomes a frog

Pippa Phillips finished-up sewing in St. Louis, Missouri.

lantern light--
the needle pulls the last thread
home

Radhika De Silva looks forward to a happier, more peaceful year in Colombo, Sri Lanka.

New year gift
big brother’s shirt and bunny--
rays of sunshine

Kanematsu links mysterious sights, sounds and smells of the afterworld. A priest came to chant a sutra at his household Buddhist altar. In the Buddhist traditions practiced in Colombo, Sri Lanka, Ashoka Weerakkody’s nirvana can be described as the extinguishing of fires that cause suffering.

Flickering
through the priest’s thin robe
candlelight

* * *

nirvana
knowing that I shall
never return

Amy Losak kindled the central candle set a little higher than eight others on a candelabrum and prayed for her ancestors in Teaneck, New Jersey.

brightening
the fading flowers
shamash candle

Deciding not to overdo it during the holiday season in Jersey, U.K., Herb Tate shared his view of the proverb about lighting both ends of a candle. In Tokyo, Murasaki Sagano pondered the meaning of an idiom.

burning the candle
at one end
’til both

* * *

The year of the Rabbit
a hard nut to crack
war or peace

Kitajima offered bread to a visitor in Joetsu, Niigata Prefecture.

First sunrise
the bulbul circling
grand-mannered

Sunil Sharma’s poetry flew from Toronto Harbourfront Centre and soared over Lake Ontario.

soaring over
the Lakes
--seagull wings

Writing from Rehovot, Israel, Mike Fainzilber dreamt of spring in Venice, Italy.

The seagull and the gondolier
both awaiting
warmer weather

J.D. Nelson’s favorite tree is relocating to a warm place full of sunshine and lots of moisture.

thousands of fluffy
cottonwood seeds ride warm winds--
a brown rabbit hops

Teiichi Suzuki realizes some will seed and some will wither in Osaka. Luciana Moretto is nonplussed by the talk of what is happening in Treviso, Italy. Keith Evetts let everything go in Thames Ditton, UK.

Dandelion puff--
their unforeseeable route
with good or bad luck

* * *

in my block of flats
one birth one death
an ordinary winter

* * *

dandelion fluff
all my wishes
go in a puff

Eufemia Griffo reminisced in Italy.

vintage postcards
Peter Rabbit comes to life
old watercolor

Brandon Favre recorded birdsong in Tempe, Arizona.

Caroling at sunset
Rotund
Mourning Doves

Francis Attard admired a snow moon shining over Marsa, Malta.

the Moon after Yule
Magi’s gifts for a poor household
gold frankincense myrrh

Fukuzawa created a magical sight from the electric lights and gas flares on an old offshore oil and gas field off the coast of Niigata Prefecture. Chinese engineers lit a flame at the top of their new oil and gas rig located near Japan’s waters in the East China Sea. In addition to serving as an iconic image of flaring natural gas, it protects the industrial equipment from the dangers of over-pressure.

Oil platform
bright as a sleepless castle
dark sea all around

The cost of energy has jumped so high in Glasgow, Scotland, that Tony Williams dreamt up this haiku while lying under several wool and mohair blankets.

staying in bed
until the heating kicks in…
year of the rabbit

A wintry North Sea at this back, Mark Gilbert was guided to safety and home in Nottingham, U.K. Masumi Orihara slowly ascended a fog-enshrouded mountain until she spotted a faint glowing light.

darkening beach
a lighthouse
looms

* * *

dense fog--
from mountain shanty
light of life

Michael Arthur ended his phone call in Teshikaga, a small town in Hokkaido. John S. Gilbertson received a message in Greenville, South Carolina.

I hang up and leave--
Mountains pink in the distance
Yesterday rich gold

* * *

sky
a postcard
from heaven tonight

Edward Cody Huddleston stayed for an encore in Baxley, Georgia. The lucky haikuist likely also waits for film credits to roll in case there are additional scenes.

after the fireworks
a grand finale
of stars

Justice Joseph Prah listened to Labadi Beach in Accra, Ghana. Richard Bailly listened to the frozen night skies over landlocked Fargo, North Dakota.

home again...
the darkness in an
old seashell

* * *

out of darkness
aurora borealis
the sound of waves

Sensing her surroundings, Mile Lisica dreamt of the Adriatic Sea off Bosnia and Herzegovina.

I close my eyes
to feel a little more
the depth of the sea

Perhaps standing on a bridge in a sea of swirling color in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Refika Dedic was reminded of a composition created by Norwegian artist Edvard Munch in 1893.

solitude--
brings back memories
the scream

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

The next issue of the Asahi Haikuist Network appears Feb. 17. Readers are invited to send haiku about love 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).