Dragonfly-- so fast the rhythm of the waves
--Giuliana Ravaglia (Bologna, Italy)

* * *

dragonfly season
drifting in the lullaby
of windblown rushes
--John Hawkhead (Bradford on Avon, England)

* * *

spotted lanternfly
I’m struggling to overcome
your beauty
--Patrick Sweeney (Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania)

* * *

Mountaintops emerge,
Dragonfly flits like your breath,
Lightly on my skin
--Dina Towbin (Brooklyn, New York)

* * *

the dragonfly
on the tip of a reed...
stillness of the summer noon
--Ram Chandran (Madurai, India)

* * *

Dragonflies
I’m flying with them
vast sunset
--Murasaki Sagano (Tokyo)

* * *

sand in the gutter
poems I missed
staying in
--Jerome Berglund (Minneapolis, Minnesota)

* * *

Face to face
the mature mantis
doesn’t flinch
--Satoru Kanematsu (Nagoya)

* * *

shimmering
on the lake a pagoda--
twilight breeze
--Hla Yin Mon (Yangon, Myanmar)

* * *

mountain lake
a falling leaf moves
all the peaks
--Marek Printer (Kielce, Poland)

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

out of thin air
a green lacewing
first-hand news
--Luciana Moretto (Treviso, Italy)

The haikuist was delighted by an apparition that seemed to echo Matsuo Basho’s philosophy that the haiku way of life requires practice rather than mere intellectual study. Here is Nani Mariani’s line of sight from Melbourne, Australia: a pair of dragonflies capture the days that were once fragrant

While traversing the American Pacific Northwest’s Olympic Mountains, Sherry Reniker observed hundreds of migrants hit the beach at Damon Point.

meeting eyes
in morning beach grass
dragonfly migration

Kanematsu got a morning call from the highest mountaintop in Japan.

“Hi grandpa”
called out at sunrise
Mt. Fuji

Jessica Allyson carried out fieldwork in Ottawa, Ontario. Natalia Kuznetsova painted a serene moment in Moscow, Russia.

damselflies’
splendor in the grass
at our rest stop

* * *

still waters...
a dragonfly resting
on clouds reflection

Sankara Jayanth Sudanagunta called out a predator in Hyderabad, India.

morning dew
what is your business
at the anthill, dragonfly?

Printer anticipated what will happen next in Kielce, Poland.

kestrel shadow
a mouse freezes
on the stubble

The haikuist j rap composed the first two lines of this haiku while camping by Heron Lake in New Mexico. The third line refers to a memory of his sophomore year at St. John’s College in Annapolis, Maryland, when he “felt light and free as a bird.”

a falcon’s shadow
drifts through the meadow--
when I was 20...

Helga Stania penned this striking line in Ettiswil, Switzerland: red flows into the morning of the hawk’s prey

Christopher Calvin saw red in Kota Mojokerto, Indonesia.

cool sunset
dragonfly unfolds its wings
red flashes in eyes

Alexander Groth in Neuenkirchen, Germany, and Tomislav Maritec in Zagreb, Croatia, each saw blue.

mountain view--
the rising sea
in your eyes

* * *

morning sun--
a damselfly’s blue eyes
peeping from the dew

Printer had a green dream.

hot wind
I close my eyes to see
a green meadow

Scott Hundahl shared a drink in Sacramento, California.

icy sake
through crystal glass
your teardrop

Urszula Marciniak started an autumn adventure in Warsaw, Poland. David Cox’s family moved to a different apartment in Beijing, China.

traveling again
this time the fallen leaves
crumble so fast

* * *

summer’s lease
we move along
with the cockroaches

Elancharan Gunasekaran received a mysterious invitation in Singapore.

the moon left a note
while you were fast asleep:
boat by the lake, 1 am

On visit from Warsaw, Poland, Aleksandra Wajs was “inspired by the piercing beauty of the ocean colour near the Hokkaido coast.”

Fateful summer days
Reflected by the sun
Shakotan blue

In flight to Varazdin, Croatia, Zelyko Funda was awakened from a dream. Robin Rich’s plane started its slow descent.

the trip is ending
angels’ call is becoming
louder and louder

* * *

high above Ireland
my ears don’t pop
child cries silently

Funda had a long flight. Rich arrived late into Cork, Ireland.

Exhausted
my dreams turn into
flat safety belts

* * *

late into Ireland
headlights find
a pair of fox eyes

Albert Schepers vacationed with family in Parksville, British Columbia. Tomislav Maretic enjoyed intermittent songs with his family by the Adriatic Sea near Dalmatia, Croatia.

a grazing deer
in the dimming of the light
field of crickets

* * *

late summer--
crickets sing a little,
rest a little

Angela Giordano composed this line in frustration of seeing what was left of her garden in Avigliano, Italy: returning home my tears scattered over the dry field

Isabella Kramer composed these two lines on a popular Greek island.

Santorini nights
the blue of a cicada cry

Exhausted from traveling to Italy, Masumi Orihara stretched out on arrival at a rustic hotel to think about everything she had yet to accomplish.

the ceiling fan blades
revolve with a gentle hum
around my journey

Monica Kakkar reflected on the heat in Delhi, India. Stania witnessed fear.

midsummer bull’s eye
afloat in reflection pool--
a ring of fire

* * *

forest fire
blazing in the eyes
of the cow

Kanematsu read breaking crime news from the courts in Atlanta, Georgia.

The mugshot
of grimacing Trump
heat lingers

Writing from Warsaw, Poland, Beata Czeszejko commiserated with women who suffer violence in India, suggesting that the war in Ukraine has also led to many unhappy lives.

in the mirror
I can see the sad eyes of my
hindu sisters

Radhika De Silva finally envisioned the moon over Colombo, Sri Lanka. At last, Henryk Czempiel’s patience was rewarded in Strzelce Opolskie, Poland.

rain...
I close my eyes
to see the moon

* * *

the harvest moon
obscured by a cloud
I sit and wait

Chen Xiaoou imagined the look of fear in Kunming, China. In Varazdin, Croatia, Zelyko Funda contrasted the hunter with the hunted.

fleeing deer
reflected in the eyes
of a hungry tiger

* * *

Kilimanjaro--
in the eyes of a lion
and an antelope

Mircea Moldovan awoke from a daydream with a rhetorical question in Letca, Romania. Here’s hoping that Honey Novick’s wish comes true in Toronto, Ontario.

a dragonfly
it disturbs my thoughts
how far is Mt. Fuji

* * *

communal good vibes
brings out humanities best
may hopeful paths cross

Kiyoshi Fukuzawa compared the flyers at Narita airport to those in his neighborhood pond. Lorelyn De la Cruz Arevalo watched red darning needles in Bombon, Philippines.

Dragonflies...
repeat “touch and go”
good pilots

* * *

pond ripples...
a dragonfly dipping
its tail again

Tony Williams saw an unforgettable view in Glasgow, Scotland. Dejan Pavlinovic camped on the Croatian island of Cres.

now I see you
I can’t un-see you
blue damselfly

* * *

sea horizon
the iris of her eye
splits in two

Teiichi Suzuki was too weary to pen a 5-7-5 syllable haiku in Osaka.

Lingering heat
my seventeen syllables
in a fog

Bonnie J. Scherer noted something being done differently in Palmer, Alaska.

dusk--
the nightingale
changes its tune

Yutaka Kitajima’s heart was taken by the ardent tenor voices of three different kinds of cicada in Joetsu, Niigata Prefecture. Kanematsu didn’t have much time to say goodnight.

Mixed chirrups
flood the whole valley...
cicadas

* * *

Just one chirp
midnight cicada
then silence

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

The next issue of the Asahi Haikuist Network appears on Oct. 20. Readers are invited to send haiku about red wine 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).