Tennis--the need for a partner
--Keith Evetts (Thames Ditton, England)

* * *

sandstorm in Paris
is painting the sky orange--
where’s my tennis ball?
--Olivier-Gabriel Humbert (Les Avenieres, France)

* * *

fly ball--
the fielder’s glove too small
for the rose moon
--Archie Carlos (St. Louis Park, Minnesota)

* * *

spring breezes: the thrill
of racing there and back,
baby donkey
--Sheila Barksdale (Gotherington, England)

* * *

summer fishing--
untying a plastic bag
off the hook
--Wai Mei Wong (Toronto, Ontario)

* * *

misty figures--
someone forgot
his fishing rod
--Helga Stania (Ettiswil, Switzerland)

* * *

Gloomy night--
having hit a roach
barehanded
--Satoru Kanematsu (Nagoya)

* * *

firefly flash…
freed from duckweed I heard
a trout jumping out
--Marek Printer (Kielce, Poland)

* * *

barefoot paddling
alongside a gull
who got the last chip
--Robin Rich (Sussex by the Sea, England)

* * *

with his diabolo
watching the kite watchers...
wind drop
--Herb Tate (Jersey, U.K.)

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

hotdogs, pretzels
mustard yellow shirt stain
spring training
--JL Huffman (Wilkesboro, North Carolina)

The haikuist made the gang sing this song: “Take me out to the ballgame.” Murasaki Sagano says she is “fond of watching major league baseball when it is broadcast live in the morning to Tokyo. Shohei Ohtani always cheers me up when he hits a home run.”

His homerun
a shot in the arm
summer begins

Stephen J. DeGuire heard the crack of a bat at Angel Stadium in Anaheim, California.

bat strikes ball…
inspires spectator’s
first novel

Masumi Orihara in Atsugi, Kanagawa Prefecture, and Satoru Kanematsu in Nagoya, respectively, celebrated Ohtani’s winning performance in the World Baseball Classic.

Victory!
beyond adoration
full-blown blossoms

* * *

Baseball winds--
samurai players
at their best

Having composed nine haiku about baseball and translating many baseball terms into Japanese, Masaoka Shiki (1867-1902) was elected to the Japanese Baseball Hall of Fame in 2002. This haiku that Shiki penned in 1890 revealed his baseball madness: haru kaze ya mari wonagetaki kusa no hara

spring breeze
this grassy field makes me
want to play catch

John Daleiden loves the onomatopoeic sounds of summer in Phoenix, Arizona. Govind Joshi heard a satisfying sound from an oval cricket field sewn with Bermuda grass in Dehradun, India. Christopher Calvin started his day in Kota Mojokerto, Indonesia, by listening to the Earth’s incessant hum. Lorelyn De la Cruz Arevalo perceived a buzzing sound in Bombon, Philippines.

Thunkkk--
into the catcher’s mitt
a perfect strike

* * *

spring afternoon
hum of the grasscutters
from the neighboring park

* * *

humming wave
diving deep into
the smell of sea

* * *

spring breeze
a bee’s humming catches
the little girl’s eyes

Monica Kakkar admired a bird’s nest.

undone to homerun
nestle monsoon work of art--
baya weaver pair

Not wanting to miss his chance to catch a lifetime of memories, Kanematsu has been playing baseball since the season opened. Masumi Orihara’s father told her that he had always dreamed of playing catch with his father, but never did.

Children’s Day
catching a fast ball
grandson threw

* * *

the grassy field
sudden itch to play catch
Father’s Day

Carlos needed a catcher’s mitt when the weather turned foul.

baseball-size hail
the limp blooms
of wildflowers

Kimberly A. Horning penned this poem in St. Augustine, Florida, while reading “The Catcher in the Rye,” the 1951 classic novel about a 16-year-old boy expelled from school.

Central Park
by the carousel
Salinger’s mitt

Huffman beachcombed.

driftwood knothole
frames pink sandcastles
Bermuda blues

The haikuist petro c.k. hit this poem out of the park in Seattle, Washington.

summer in the park
a sudden gust of wind
crashes a wedding

Calvin lifted his chin as high as humanly possible.

warm spring day
my yawn tops
over the clouds

Tired, but happy, Archie Carlos made it all the way home.

sliding home
in the twelfth inning--
longest day

Angela Giordano recited this line all day long in Avigliano, Italy: in the new grass my son’s endless somersaults

DeGuire watched aghast as a spectator lifted five spikes and a slab of white rubber from a baseball playing field.

broad daylight
brazen robbery
of home plate

Sherry Reniker was left empty-handed when she visited the seaside at Enoshima, Kanagawa Prefecture.

brunch on the beach
pastry in hand
--swiped! by a black kite

Padraig O’Morain cut and polished metal at the top of the morning in Dublin, Ireland.

spring garden
after the screams of the angle grinder
birdsong

Standing at a department store counter in Tokyo, Kiyoshi Fukuzawa fretted about how to best show his appreciation to a dear friend.

Summer gift--
should it be less salty?
he’s my age

Kimberly Kuchar picked up a souvenir in Austin, Texas.

old baseball
in a field of poppies
a game left unfinished

C.X. Turner walked in a field of baseball-sized flowers.

spring breeze--
white alliums paint the sky
with stars

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

The next issues of the Asahi Haikuist Network appear Aug. 4 and 18. Readers are invited to compose haiku about the appearance of El Nino--a climate pattern of warm Pacific Ocean surface temperatures--for the first time in seven years. Mail your haiku on a postcard to David McMurray at the International University of Kagoshima, Sakanoue 8-34-1, Kagoshima, 891-0197, Japan, or by 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).