gone before lunch Valentine chocolates
--Roberta Beach Jacobson (Indianola, Iowa)

* * *

warmth of light
on the braille, aha,
love letter
--Masumi Orihara (Atsugi, Kanagawa)

* * *

If I write it but
Do not actually do it
How come it feels real?
--Jennifer Gurney (Broomfield, Colorado)

* * *

Retired…
he writes his profile
for online love
--Charlotte Digregorio (Winnetka, Illinois)

* * *

Winter evening--
girls fuss over which star
shines the brightest?
--Kiyoshi Fukuzawa (Tokyo)

* * *

no lottery luck--
day after day
her love
--Marek Kozubek (Bangkok, Thailand)

* * *

red lanterns near
a surveillance camera--
winter fruit
--David Cox (Beijing, China)

* * *

frozen pond…
a busy sugar shack
on cold nights
--Randall Herman (Victoria, Texas)

* * *

red camellia--
the last of the
melting snow
--Lafcadio (Chattanooga, Tennessee)

* * *

valentine’s day--
a heart shaped cloud
walks me home
--Hifsa Ashraf (Rawalpindi, Pakistan)

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

first love…
an almond blossom
clings to snow
--Richa Sharma (Ghaziabad, India)

The haikuist recalled a fragile love. Cox paused for a moment after food slipped from his chopsticks. Eleonore Nickolay rode a Ferris wheel in Vaires sur Marne, France.

spare ribs so
slippery in my grip…
I dwell on the fall

* * *

vertigo
in the big wheel he declares
his love to me

Kimberly A. Horning spent the day turning counterclockwise in St. Augustine, Florida. “Widdershins” is also the title of a mysterious book with black covers about a cat by Alex Alexander.

widdershins
another cat scan
another day--

Isabella Kramer spoke encouragingly in Nienhagen, Germany.

the black tears of a snowman
don’t speak too soon
of giving up

Charlie Smith’s pet dog watched as he geometrically measured the black spaces from Sirius in Canis Major to Procyon in Canis Minor to Castor and Pollux in Gemini.

Wolf Moon joins
Winter Hexagon
we all howl

J.D. Nelson’s pet loves hunting dawn to dusk in Lafayette, Colorado. The haikuist said he loves reading poetry published in small press books, including, “Teaching and Learning Haiku in English.” He’s added it to his list of favorites, alongside “The Haiku Handbook” and “The Genius of Haiku.”

Jupiter above
the foothills of the mountains…
dog chases rabbit

Keiko Fujiwara wrote flowingly about her favorite.

This book
intoxicates me
wine-colored cover

Surprised to find a blushing-red leaf bookmark, Moriyuki Kojima, the director of the Kagoshima Asia Pacific International Center in Kanoya, composed a haiku using the Japanese word for dried flowers.

Presented book--
Hiding oshibana between pages
with shying red face

Ashraf saw a woman looking pretty in pink. Satoru Kanematsu admired a deeper red shade flower　with bright yellow pistils.

pink camellia
her face blushes
with love

* * *

Camellia--
stamens collecting
winter sun

Tsanka Shishkova wrote a poem for lovebirds on Valentine’s Day in Sofia, Bulgaria.

swallows nests
under the red roofs
nostalgia

The poems in John Hamley’s new anthology, “Uncle John’s Haiku,” might make you smile as wide as the cat in Lewis Carroll’s novel.

Cheshire moon
fourteen ounces
of small tomatoes

Eufemia Griffo loved rereading “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.”

Year of the Rabbit
Alice in wonderland meets
with an old friend again

Joshua St. Claire is ready to fall down a rabbit hole in New Freedom, Pennsylvania.

snow crust
a wild hare
enters another world

Maria Cezza offered a two-line narrative poem from Maglie, Italy.

snow that withers into the manhole
snow joining the flower

Here’s another possible ending to that story: snow that withers into the manhole joins the flower.

Ram Chandran wrote this narrative poem in Madurai, India.

reading under table lamp--
are you interested
in this novel, little moth?

Priti Khullar tried a new way to show how much she cares in Noida, India.

new year
I no longer remove the price tag
from his gift

James Lindley had a change of heart.

fishing a note
from the trash
new year

This poetic line by Pippa Phillips predicts what the sun will do in St. Louis, Missouri: the anticipation of time sunlight’s debris.

Olivier-Gabriel Humbert in Les Avenieres, France, and Andy McLellan in Canterbury, U.K., respectively, arrived too late.

in the puddle
of a snowman
carrot and moon rabbit

* * *

all that remains
of a snowman’s nose
Year of the Rabbit

Anne-Marie McHarg felt as if she missed the start of the year. Michael Arthur warmed to the touch at dinnertime. Tony Williams was touched affectionately in Glasgow, Scotland.

Howling wind
the new year
blew away

* * *

Noodles boiling,
Passing the wine, our hands touch
White gales blast the panes

* * *

winter dark
a hand, your hand
squeezing mine

Murasaki Sagano warmed to a sweet and delicate flavor from Kyoto.

Chilly night
cup of white miso soup
warm to the skin

Yutaka Kitajima sipped a sweet, fermented rice drink and penned this line of poetry while taking a break from clearing snow in Joetsu, Niigata Prefecture: Freed from toil another cup of amazake.

Having worked in subtropical Kagoshima for several years, Aaron Ozment braved a rare snowstorm in short sleeves.

Old age has taught me
how to stay warm in winter…
too fat for my coat

Citrus baths and loving care are helping Kanematsu to trudge along life’s path. His wife received an award from the Nagoya Dentist’s Association. These two haiku juxtapose the transient fragility of human beauty with the eternal march of time.

Healthy smile:
her own twenty teeth
aged eighty

* * *

Step by step
in the winter sun
my legs cure

Sachiyo Murao cheered for her rehabilitating father.

Ready, go!
dear dad challenges
crosswalk steps

Jennifer Gurney prayed for a miracle.

Heavy word: hospice
The end is nearing so soon
I want time with you

Tomislav Sjekloca stretched his legs in Cetinje, Montenegro.

after ages
hopping the hopscotch--
year of the rabbit

Junko Saeki recalled her days as a war orphan when Tokyo was fire-bombed during World War II.

“you didn’t walk right”
therapist tells the woman
darkness of the war

Writing this poem in North Syracuse, New York, Carl Brennan kept his pet safe, as implied, from winter “winds cold as the grave.”

Snowbound; my bored cat
practicing his jumps...
the Summer Games

Mario Massimo Zontini prefers a slower pace of life in Parma, Italy.

winter morning:
the pleasure of idleness
after breakfast

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

The next issues of the Asahi Haikuist Network appear March 3, 17 and 31. Readers are invited to send haiku about dolls, four-leaf clovers, or the fiscal year-end 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).