moonlight... my cat chases his shadow
--Giuliana Ravaglia (Bologna, Italy)

* * *

Ghost story
reaches its climax…
cat’s meow
--Satoru Kanematsu (Nagoya)

* * *

a bowl of tea
under the moonlight
your presence
--Nani Mariani (Melbourne, Australia)

* * *

sleepless stopover
the moon above
that office block
--Padraig O’Morain (Dublin, Ireland)

* * *

road crossing mountains--
the moon guides us
from Caraiman Peak
--Steliana Cristina Voicu (Ploiesti, Romania)

* * *

Nagasaki
the blood-colored moon
remembers
--Francoise Maurice (Draguignan, France)

* * *

autumn moon
gaping at the rabbit’s foot
on his keychain
--Kimberly Kuchar (Austin, Texas)

* * *

between the moon
and the island
a silver path
--Marek Printer (Kielce, Poland)

* * *

silvery slivers
Lake Huron flashes mooneyes--
my peeling sunburn
--Monica Kakkar (Chicago, Illinois)

* * *

once in a blue moon
brightest in black sky
Venus smiles
--David Brydges (Cobalt, Ontario)

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

waxing gibbous moon
I leave the doctor’s message
until tomorrow
--Keith Evetts (Thames Ditton, U.K.)

The haikuist decided to procrastinate when he felt the mid-autumn moon pull on his heartstrings. Masumi Orihara’s haiku was inspired by watching a family video. Wai Mei Wong’s family celebrates tonight in Toronto, Ontario. Teiichi Suzuki gorged on seasonal fruit in Osaka.

baby’s eyes
follow her mother’s
sunshine dress

* * *

harvest season
she finds herself a baby
corncob doll

* * *

Late at night
ripe for the taking
a white peach

Kanematsu’s family celebrated an early start to the harvest moon festival with two round-shaped offerings.

Hot day’s joy:
watermelon cooled
in the well

* * *

The boiled egg
peels so easily--
new coolness

Anne-Marie McHarg fed birds in London, England.

A pigeon
Feasting on berries red
All day long

Tomislav Maretic and his helper relaxed after a long day in Dalmatia, Croatia.

harvested fields--
now the scarecrow can see
the rising moon

Archie Carlos reflected on the terraced hills of his native Philippines. Xenia Tran contemplated staying in a farmer’s hillside hut in Nairn, Scotland.

Banaue dream
he sculpts a mountain
for the rice moon

* * *

the silver light
in a weathered shieling
september moon

Elancharan Gunasekaran was greeted romantically at a luxurious hotel in Singapore.

checked into hotel room
the moon was already there
sipping champagne

Govind Joshi and his wife booked into a hotel with a bay window in Dehradun, India.

under the moonlight
this mountain village
in a slow dance

When Orihara books into a hotel in Mashiko, Tochigi Prefecture, she says she is “a stickler for the room with a magnificent view. The town is also famous for its outdoor spa, delicious food, plenty of sake and an eye-catching big-bellied raccoon statue made of clay pottery.” Kimberly A. Horning says her “family ran a bar during the Prohibition era” in St. Augustine, Florida.

giant tanuki
welcomes all wayfarers--
the moon-viewing room

* * *

speakeasy
moonshine good
Catholics

Ashoka Weerakkody drove down the road as dusk fell on his long night’s trip with headlights burning bright in Colombo, Sri Lanka. Marie Derley looked forward to sitting down on a rolled-up bundle of straw in Ath, Belgium. Mario Massimo Zontini veered his sportster in Parma, Italy.

headlights on
for tonight’s long voyage
rise the full moon

* * *

going to see
the hay cylinders
full moon

* * *

winding road--
the moon lights up the haybales
now right, now left

Charlie Smith was hoping to go for a leisurely walk with his house pet to watch the moonrise in Raleigh, North Carolina.

sultry stroll
fifteen rabbits
strong dog leash

Jennifer Gurney readied herself for the best performance of the year in Broomfield, Colorado.

the clouds have gone
the stars have dimmed
the full moon takes the stage

Pitt Buerken cuddled in Muenster, Germany. Henryk Czempiel sized up an enemy at the gates to Strzelce Opolskie, Poland.

Supermoon
never have we been so close
as today

* * *

the size of dread
when the enemy is near
blue supermoon

Dejan Ivanovic tried an avant-garde approach to writing this haiku in Lazarevac, Serbia.

tell me something
completely different
--the moon is indeed blue

Tsanka Shishkova penned 17 syllables while watching a wordless outdoor performance that was replete with gestures and body movements. James Penha sang out loud with an accompaniment in Bali, Indonesia.

lovers on the beach
clouds’ pantomime performance
and the harvest moon

* * *

fading sunset
the wind can’t help but whistle
karaoke moon

While a full moon was shining bright in 1693, Matsuo Basho penned this impressive hokku as the first of 36-linked verses with his disciple Kikaku and an Edo-Period poet Zenho: tsuki ya sono hachi no ki no hi no shita omote

that moon reminds me
of the day he performed Noh
not wearing a mask

Helga Stania stretched along the edge of mountain lake in Ettiswil, Switzerland: resting by the lake the moon’s silver hue empties my thoughts

John Zheng flit close to a flame in Ittabena, Mississippi.

candlelight
memory melts into
a full moon

Robin Rich chalked his cue in Sussex, England. Bonnie Scherer dusted cookies with sugar in Palmer, Alaska.

white ball behind blue
in the snooker hall with friends
sliver of the moon

* * *

house hunting
fresh baked cookies
cue home sweet home

Kuchar couldn’t stop writing about moon nectar in Austin, Texas.

moonlit dance
a moth flits
from flower
to flower

Xiaoou Chen would love to travel from his home in Kunming, China, to explore the far side of the moon. Watching from Catawissa, Pennsylvania, Dennis Frohlich cheered India’s “Pragyan” lunar rover during its two-week tour of the moon’s south pole. Orihara thought “the blue moon was beautiful, but last night’s moon was more magnificent.” With the launch of the “SLIM” lunar exploration spacecraft from Tanegashima earlier this month, she hopes Japan may soon become the next country to land on the moon and possibly offer a lottery to visit the moon kingdom.

cloudy moon
let us make a trip to
the space station

* * *

Lunar rover snaps
Pictures ’til the frigid night:
mayflies fly one day

* * *

the jackpot
once in a blue moon
space travel

While looking for a sign from an old friend in Pico Rivera, California, Jackie Chou recited Juliet’s soliloquy from Shakespeare’s play about star-crossed lovers. Maurice sat in front row seats in Draguignan, France. Stephen J. DeGuire maintained a full lotus posture in Los Angeles, California.

The Milky Way…
wherefore are you
among the stars?

* * *

our two gazes
toward the same horizon
Milky Way

* * *

zen temple’s
congregants look up…
dragons fly

Kakkar was entranced by dark green lines along the edges of a performer’s eyelids in Delhi, India.

summer opera--
the eyes on a peacock’s train
dance in her kohl gaze

Mona Bedi was feeling blue in Delhi, India.

pondering over
my death poem
blue moon

Oshima Ryota was another fervent disciple of the Basho school of poetry. At his deathbed on Sept. 9, 1787, he closed the gap in his understanding of reality and illusion with this poem: Mizu no tsuki mondori utte nagarekeri

Moon in the water
turning a somersault then
it floated away

Reminiscent of scenes in the Studio Ghibli historical animation, “Princess Mononoke,” Eufemia Griffo was guided by a spirit animal to help her through life’s rough patches in Milan, Italy. Suzuki admired legendary deer--perhaps in reflection of the fantasy film’s deer-like god Shishigami--that are closely connected with the gods of Kasugataisha shrine.

full moon
a wolf’s shadow runs
next to mine

* * *

Shimmering
in the deer’s eyes
Nara’s moon

Aljosa Vukovic accepted his fate in Croatia, Sibenik.

autumn of life--
I love her but I am closer
to heaven

Bedi felt frustrated about what she could possibly do. Junko Saeki was at a loss for words in Tokyo.

Sakura--
if only I could
make a difference

* * *

Harvest moon
listening, while
words cannot be found

Luciana Moretto isn’t satisfied with humankind’s obscure efforts to improve the dark and gloomy--even ghostly--environment in Treviso, Italy.

Supermoon glow--
for a murky planet
not enough

* * *

peace and pain
under ghostly cypresses
neighbours, the end is nigh

Rainclouds ran off with Madhuri Pillai’s view in Melbourne, Australia.

rain streaking
down train window--
absconding moon

Printer witnessed the revitalization of Kielce, Poland.

harvest moon
windows of an abandoned house
full of light

Savoring every moment of a long road trip, Slobodan Pupovac turned around and headed for home in Zagreb, Croatia. Christopher Calvin felt comforted at bedtime in Kota Mojokerto, Indonesia.

slow driving
crescent moon and me
on the way home

* * *

bed window
will you watch until I sleep?
smiling moon

Mike Fainzilber had a premonition of a dark fortnight in Rehovot, Israel.

owls in the new moon
their soft hoots will echo
after my passing

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

Haikuists know what’s happening in your neighborhood. The next issues of the Asahi Haikuist Network appear Oct. 6 and 20. Readers are invited to send haiku inspired by Matsuo Basho’s hokku: that moon reminds me of the day he performed Noh not wearing a mask, 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).