empty nest... my home is a house for sale
--Tsanka Shishkova (Sofia, Bulgaria)

* * *

I followed the path
through the soughing pines
to the grave of Maurice Stokes
--Patrick Sweeney (Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania)

* * *

five kinds of leaf
on the botanist’s gravestone
coming of autumn
--Keith Evetts (Thames Ditton, England)

* * *

now and then
the moon through gum trees
a kookaburra’s taunt
--Madhuri Pillai (Melbourne, Australia)

* * *

A murmur
Of the west wind
Among the pine trees
--Anne-Marie McHarg (London, England)

* * *

fresh pine needles
this wish to walk
the unmarked trail
--Richard L. Matta (San Diego, California)

* * *

tree by tree
the children closed in on
hidden treasure baskets
--Payal Aggarwal (Ghaziabad, India)

* * *

softening
the path ahead
hazel catkins
--C.X. Turner (Birmingham, England)

* * *

kindly…
in the sick room
pussy willows
--Kimberly A. Horning (St. Augustine, Florida)

* * *

falling oak
for a moment
pointing to the moon
--Daniel Birnbaum (La Bouilladisse, France)

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

Encounter
wandering Basho
in my dream
--Satoru Kanematsu (Nagoya)

Having always lived in the same city, the haikuist may have preferred an itinerant lifestyle--moving seasonally throughout Japan. In 1689, Matsuo Basho traveled the narrow roads to the deep north, including Matsushima (literally, pine island), a location that he claimed poets must visit to see the pine if they want to learn about the pine. Evetts harmoniously rolled the components of the tree’s bittersweet scent from his lips.

the breath of pine--
pinene, limonene
and turpentine

Yutaka Kitajima felt sticky hot in Joetsu, Niigata Prefecture. Corine Timmer can already sense the unique flavors in this year’s harvest bursting from Algarve vineyards in Faro, Portugal, ready to be aged in oak barrels. Eugeniusz Zacharski helped repair a wooden hull in Darlowo, Poland.

Brown resin
oozing from cedars...
scorching hot

* * *

late summer sunset
plump grapes oozing
memories

* * *

pine resin tincture
the old fisherman
caulks his boat

Published posthumously, the master poet’s major work “Oku no Hosomichi” demonstrated that verses could be linked by scent (nioi-zuke) in much the same way that fragrance is carried by the wind. In 1743, Oshima Ryota reviewed the masterpiece and wrote of the pines in this way: Samidare ya aru yoru hisoka ni matsu no tsuki

Heavy rain showers
one night, as if in secret
the moon behind pines

The haikuist known as marzie tends a small garden surrounded by towering evergreens on Texada Island, British Columbia.

sweet peas
the kind that monks once grew
heaven scent

Carl Brennan inhaled for as long as he could in North Syracuse, New York.

The poignant scent
of newly trimmed evergreens--
summer’s last breath

John Pappas confidently penned this line knowing the new moon lurked in the shadows of Boston, Massachusetts: impossible not to feel it ghost moon

William Scott Galasso reported that he “just got back from 17 days in Ireland.”

after showers
the Ring of Kerry…
fifty shades of green

Joshua St. Claire was inspired to compose this haiku in York County, Pennsylvania.

night-flowering stock
the scent begins a journey
beyond the horizon

Dennis Frohlich offered this view from his picture window in Catawissa, Pennsylvania.

After the hard rain,
the mountain is shrouded
with misty clouds

Vladislav Hristov cooled his feet in Plovdiv, Bulgaria.

autumn forest
my sandals
covered with dew

Ecaterina Neagoe felt a sudden coolness in Bucharest, Romania.

The coolness is flowing
from the waterfall under the firs--
the blue moon waving

Luciana Moretto’s fir tree gave away everything she had to Venice, Italy.

Chainsaw--
resin scent
its last gift

Jerome Berglund’s wick was burning low in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

slowly
the wheel shrinks
oil lamp

Turner discovered a perfect place to nestle on a warm and windy day. Arvinder Kaur found a perfect spot by an Indian rosewood tree for a picnic in Chandigarh, India.

curled up...
the quiet company
of trees

* * *

under the sheesham tree
butter slides on his roti
farmer’s lunch

David Greenwood set out from St. Andrews, Scotland. Sweeney walked alone in the woods.

careful travel plans
hoping inspiration strikes
spontaneously

* * *

swept by sun showers
the white oak
shimmers for me alone

Sherry Reniker went for a walk through the colorfully painted forests of Kent, Washington.

trace of silk
October’s hiding under
Monet’s orange poplars

Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862) wrote that he “went to the woods… to front only the essential facts of life…” so as not, “when [he] came to die, discover that [he] had not lived.” Kyle Sullivan, a graduate student of poetry in Kaohsiung, Taiwan, observed others wanting, “to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life,” in their own ways, when he penned this haiku.

final call
as the dance winds down…
autumn mosquito

Forest fires prompted Masumi Orihara to lament, “I don’t see mosquitos as much as before.” Ed Bremson noted that in Raleigh, North Carolina, amphibians seemed happy with this year’s crop of insects.

deserted I feel
neither mosquito nor roach
only flood and drought

* * *

autumn equinox...
season of the frogs comes in
on cricket song

Albert Schepers invited a guest to share this year’s wine harvest in Windsor, Ontario. Slobodan Pupovac sauntered down a spiral staircase in search of another bottle.

come
share my glass of wine
little fruit fly

* * *

wine cellar
fruit flies
staggering

Weighted down by thoughts of redemption in exchange for an act of kindness in Warsaw, Poland, Beata Czeszejko penned a haiku inspired by Ryunosuke Akutagawa’s 1918 dark fable, “The Spider’s Thread.”

a spider spinning
its shiny thread--
despite the starless night

Tohm Bakelas felt repressed when he wrote this haiku in New Jersey.

labyrinths shift and
awaken buried truths--
i walk dark twisted paths

Refika Dedic imagined the fear of running with one’s back to the cold moon through the woods in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

a night of silence
a shadow on the run
homeless people

Angela Giordano feared being cut down by a cold wind.

deer moon...
swords in the sky
the dry branches

Some Tokyoites fear that nearly 3,000 trees might be cut down at Jingu Gaien, an historic and beloved forested area with several ponds, to make way for a real estate project. Murasaki Sagano voiced her silent thoughts in Tokyo. Teiichi Suzuki felt the weight of October’s blood-thirsty moonlight.

Single rose
speaks under my breath
lingering autumn

* * *

Garden pond
Hunter’s moon deepens
density of water

Saffron flowers bloom every October for Shishkova.

lonely
among the wild saffron fields
our first kiss, years ago

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

The next issues of the Asahi Haikuist Network appear Nov. 3 and 17. Readers are invited to send haiku inspired by Japanese culture 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).