weatherman was right for once the fish are jumping
Ian Willey (Takamatsu, Kagawa)

* * *

waterfall spray--
fluttering through the rainbow,
a damselfly
--Tomislav Maretic (Zagreb, Croatia)

* * *

sun on the terrace--
cactus blooming
at different paces
--Julia Guzman (Cordoba, Argentina)

* * *

meal on a terrace
under the clumsy couple
the lucky sparrows
--Marie Derley (Ath, Belgium)

* * *

windowsill basil--
persuading the ladybird
to stay
--Claire Ninham (North Yorkshire, U.K.)

* * *

sunny morning
the postman brings
my first pension
--Slobodan Pupovac (Zagreb, Croatia)

* * *

Mardi Gras extravaganza--
crepes Suzette indulgence
gone out of control
--Elena Malec (Irvine, California)

* * *

Barber’s joy--
blooming in mirrors
cyclamens
--Satoru Kanematsu (Nagoya)

* * *

I light candles to
Give the illusion of warmth
Against the arctic chill
--Jennifer Gurney (Broomfield, Colorado)

* * *

down pillow
in my carry-on...
night flight
--Tsanka Shishkova (Sofia, Bulgaria)

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

blossom wind
whispers in my ears
the love song
--Hifsa Ashraf (Rawalpindi, Pakistan)

The sweet, delicate scent of a blossoming apricots or perhaps peach caught the haikuist’s attention. Although Roberta Beach Jacobson and her loved one “plum” forgot to celebrate an event in Indianola, Iowa, today is a peach of a day to make up, albeit belatedly.

we surprise
each other by forgetting
the date

March 3 can be commemorated by girls as a Peach Festival (Momo no Sekku) or Doll’s Festival (Hina no Sekku) in Japan. Murasaki Sagano will enjoy a cup of thick green tea at a traditional ceremony today.

The Dolls’ Festival
a child in kimono
with red-lined sleeves

Yutaka Kitajima spotted someone admiring herself on a smartphone in Joetsu, Niigata Prefecture: Suggesting that the girl might be murmuring, “This is a sign of love. To be sure, a smart boy is yearning for me somewhere.”

First love
the girl caresses
her pimple

Traditionally, the auspicious third day of the third month according to the lunar calendar was named for peaches: the season when the trees typically began to blossom. In 1686, Matsuo Basho was feeling under the weather at his house when he composed: wazuraeba mochi o mo kuwazu momo no hana.

because I am sick
no festive rice cake for me--
peaches in blossom

In 1689, in preparation for a journey to Tohoku, the master poet sold his bamboo hut to a young family and penned this starting verse: kusa no to mo sumikawaru yo ya hina no ie.

Even a thatched hut
may change with a new owner
into a doll’s house

Teiichi Suzuki recently took a walk in Shikoku.

Pilgrimage route
at the first hostel
a foot bath

An avid reader who said she “enjoys and always looks forward to his haiku,” Mary L. Leopkey penned this poem to encourage Kanematsu to keep hiking in Chubu.

a stick helps
as does perseverance
and haiku

A century and a half ago, Japan shifted to Gregorian dates. That meant the day following Dec. 2, 1872, on the lunar calendar suddenly became Jan. 1, 1873, on the new style solar calendar. A whole month was lost. T.D. Ginting recently crafted this double entendre in Murakami, Chiba.

the new calendar--
hesitate
(for)getting a new haircut

March 3 on the mid-19th century calendar was too cold for peaches to blossom; but the religious holiday continued as a festival for girls. Patrick Sweeney lives at sea level in Aomori Prefecture, so he was surprised by what interested girls who visited his hometown from one of the snowiest places on earth.

girls down from the Hakkodas
taking pictures
of snow

Remarkably, blossoms have begun reappearing earlier than they did 150 years ago. Peach flowers can now be seen by the third month--on the Gregorian calendar. This season creep is due to global warming, and it teases farmers to plant fruit trees farther north. In Arlington, Virginia, Mariya Gusev observed reptiles are creeping northward, too.

northern migration
a frozen alligator
luckier than most

Leopkey put her doll away for another day in Texada Island, British Columbia.

ragged rabbit
stuffed in the mending box
--one day, this year

Chris Langer noted that the basketball season will soon be ending in Stephenville, Texas, but his favorite NBA player leads the lifetime scoring record.

fadeaway jumper--
to applause the King
takes his throne

Japan’s baseball season has also lengthened and extended farther north since the first game was played 150 years ago at Yokohama stadium on May 23, 1872. The month of March this year is forecast to be warm in Hokkaido for the Nippon Ham Fighters’ season opener at the new Sapporo Dome. Jerome Berglund honored a beloved poet and well-respected figure on his birthday in the baseball-loving community of Minnesota.

a life well-lived:
all the dust kicked up
sliding home

Lilia Racheva penned a haiku during the worm moon season in Rousse, Bulgaria, the last full moon of winter will shine on March 6. A biologist by profession, Mike Fainzilber rooted for an underdog.

first catch
chickens hunting worms
in the yard

* * *

the worm feels
a seagull stamping
or maybe the rain

Angela Giordano looks forward to celebrating International Women’s Day by giving a delicate, yet resistant flower on March 8: I still remember our first kiss among the mimosas.

Fainzilber knows where to find fresh blossoms in Rehovot, Israel.

where the desert
meets the rain
mountain flowers

Sophia Conway swooned on Vancouver Island, British Columbia.

Swallows dancing
together on a warm breeze
Fleeting romance

C.F. Tash sits comfortably in Washington, D.C.

broken in
the old sagging couch
and our love

Kitajima saw something to smile about while clearing waist-deep snow in Joetsu, Niigata Prefecture.

Watching me
run a snow blower
the bulbul

Malec got her boatman to smile for the camera at the Venice Carnival.

carnival masks--
only gondolieri wearing
their own smiles

Eufemia Griffo paid tribute to an ailing man in Milan, Italy. Her haiku alludes to the custom of placing a coin on the mouth of a dead person at burials in Western European cultures. A fee had to be paid to transport dead souls through the dark gorges of the Acheron River and underground to the world of the dead. Those who did not pay were doomed to become the restless dead and return as ghosts.

last journey
a coin for the ferryman
in his hands

Mona Bedi paused to make a financial decision in Delhi, India. Pupovac fished in Zagreb, Croatia.

wishing well
the street urchin asks
for a penny

* * *

fishing
indecisive fish in front
of the hook

Sherry Grant set a hook in Auckland, New Zealand.

online dating
a fish takes
the bait

Pippa Phillips hopes to nurture a bundle of 10 interweaved stalks of bamboo in a planter of lucky bamboo in St. Louis, Missouri: base ten the luckiness of odd-numbered bamboo

Christopher Calvin tossed coins everywhere in Kota Mojokerto, Indonesia.

sparing no expense
fountain, beggar’s bowl, old well
the blind luck

Samo Kreutz has been writing stories with happy endings since the age of eight in Ljubljana, Slovenia.

kissed
and embraced--
his lucky coin

Rosemarie Schuldes paused to read a headstone inscription in Mattsee, Austria.

winter jasmine
sun-kissed snow
on the grave

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It’s always a peach of a day at http://www.asahi.com/ajw/special/haiku/. The next regular issues appear on St. Patrick’s Day, March 17 and spring ennui at the fiscal year-end on March 31. Readers are invited to send haiku related to the color of green clover or mustard yellow 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).