the wind touches me--I’m inside of things
--Giuliana Ravaglia (Bologna, Italy)

* * *

taking a breath
from the outside in
the ex-premier
--John Hawkhead (Bradford-on-Avon, U.K.)

* * *

sudden gust
the fence gate swings
open and closed
--John Zheng (Itta Bena, Mississippi)

* * *

Blizzard--
mandarins
on a colorful platter
--Marek Printer (Kielce, Poland)

* * *

Even a strong wind
making a detour
to winter roses
--Murasaki Sagano (Tokyo)

* * *

heritage city
pastel doodles
on the wall
--Aparna Pathak (Gurugram, India)

* * *

after a sudden storm--
wisps of steam
from my teacup
--Malcolm MacClancy (Greenore, Ireland)

* * *

old computer
and I
losing functions
--Chris Faiers (Marmora, Ontario)

* * *

falling bombs on Gaza
the weakness of the winds
coming from afar
--Marie Derley (Wallonia, Belgium)

* * *

last breath--
dad silently let go
of my hand
--Mona Bedi (Delhi, India)

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

flag tree
the king finds himself alone
or nearly
--Jerome Berglund (Minneapolis, Minnesota)

The haikuist alluded to Shakespeare’s “King Lear” when he saw a lopsided tree with branches blowing like a flag in strong winds. The playwright suggested the king’s daughter should not be judged based on words, but by her actions. Danijela Grbelja’s haiku questions whether professing one’s love speaks louder than a thunderclap in Sibenik, Croatia.

dragon’s heart
who is still afraid
of thunder?

Satoru Kanematsu was lured by a row of colorful advertising poles waving outside a shopping mall in Nagoya.

First spring gale--
opening sale banners
fluttering

Robin Rich caught sight of a red dragon billowing on the green and red striped flag of Wales. Pamela A. Babusci brightened her home in Rochester, New York, with a wax taper and strung colorful flags outside in hopes that her mantras for peace would be blown by the winds.

the dragon
heads into the wind
Cymru am byth

* * *

windy stars
across prayer flags
i light a candle

Mike Fainzilber in Rehovot, Israel, was astonished to find that he might have been befriended by a Korean rapper, singer and dancer in the 2017 film, “The King,” who goes by the name of a guardian deity of the sea in Japanese mythology.

whispering waves
three lines on a page
Ryujin is my only reader

When Los Angeles, California, was deluged by a huge atmospheric river, Stephen J. DeGuire read biblical verses 6:13-22 in Genesis.

first spring storm
no one around who
owns an ark

Kimberly A. Horning beachcombed in St. Augustine, Florida.

turning over a conch shell
the anole’s tail
disappears

Barbara Anna Gaiardoni couldn’t fathom why she was feeling sad in Verona, Italy. Mel Goldberg found an amenable psychotherapist in Ajijic, Mexico.

Verona Arena
during the winter
a bit of melancholy

* * *

I tell my troubles
to my dragon
she listens

Today marks the Ides of March, when Brutus and his co-conspirators killed Julius Caesar on March 15, 44 B.C. Maurice was sure of what the sea was warning. Horst Ludwig shared a biblical warning from the desert.

rumble of the wind
foam on the crests of the waves
tell me about you

* * *

Old, contemplating
that hadst thou sprung in deserts,
where no men abide

Jessica Allyson took her skates off after receiving a storm warning at the Rideau Canal in Ottawa, Canada. Afterwards, she took home a flat pastry topped with lemon sugar, noting bittersweetly that the world’s longest skating rink had “only been able to be open for skating for a couple of days this year, although that’s more than we’ve had the last two years!”

alert on phone
skateway closed by
freezing rain

* * *

non-skaters
braving the canal
for beavertails

Kanematsu shivered at the news of storm winds blowing from Des Moines, Iowa. Lori Kiefer reported on inclement weather in London, England.

Kicking off
Trump’s roaring campaign
first spring gale

* * *

spring morning
stormy with a chance
of crows

Aldo Schwartz found respite at an ancient Buddhist temple located in Asakusa, Tokyo.

senso-ji
in a storm of new faces
my quiet pleasure

Babusci wrote this haiku to reveal “the kind of abuse that doesn’t leave external scars, just internal ones.” Further explaining “now, she is free and regained her strength and power that she forgot she had.”

leaving
her abusive boyfriend
regaining lost power

Luciana Moretto traveled to see frescoes at a UNESCO World Heritage Site in Romania.

the damned and the devils
in hell fire ... painted
monasteries of Bucovina

Archie Carlos sent a warning from St. Louis Park, Minnesota. Shakhawat Tipu was not sure whom to believe in Dhaka, Bangladesh.

new epoch
layer after layer
of plastic

* * *

A sigh--
Among thousands of fictions
--unspoken

T.D. Ginting stood mouth agape as he took in the surroundings of Medan, Indonesia.

field
fence
the cows g(r)aze...

Daniel Birnbaum reached the vertex of two hyperbola in La Bouilladisse, France.

climbing to the top
the sky and the void
meet

Having realized the inevitability of death at the age of 90, Katsushika Hokusai perfected the essence of ukiyo-e art when every single detail came to life in his masterstroke 1849 scroll “The Dragon of Smoke Escaping from Mount Fuji.” Kanematsu’s haiku suggests that in death, the printmaker became the dragon.

Hokusai’s
last Mount Fuji art
dragon cheers

Monica Kakkar in India and Slawa Sibiga in Poland, respectively, have been brushing up their ink-painting skills.

treasure of techniques…
how Year of the Wood Dragon
swirls in sumi-e

* * *

black on white
on the first sumi-e
dragon’s mark

In Beesenstedt, Germany, Ramona Linke marked her forehead with ashes in the shape of a cross on the first day of Lent, a holy day of fasting and repentance.

Ash Wednesday
a flock of cranes crosses
the hamlet

Knowing the value of religious art pieces, Horst Ludwig appreciated a reprint of Albrecht Durer’s original (1498) woodcut print.

A flea market print
St. George Killing the Dragon
sure not a bad grab

While pulling on a pair of brand-name pantyhose stockings, Susan Burch added a parenthetical phrase to this line: hatching dragon (l)eggs

Afterwards, the haikuist simmered down in Hagerstown, Maryland.

dragon meditation--
doing it until I stop
exhaling fire

A sore throat ravaged Alexander Groth with burning pain in Neuenkirchen, Germany.

becoming a dragon
just for two weeks
--tonsillitis

Kanchan Chatterjee admired a chameleon in Jamshedpur, India.

lingering day--
on the rooftop, the dragon
keeps changing colors

When David Brydges put the cat out on his deck in Cobalt, Ontario, they simultaneously looked at the full moon.

winter night
fuller eyes
brighten

Micheline Comtois-Cecyre looks forward to springtime in Boucherville, Quebec.

it’s snowing here too
happily, the Japanese cherry blossom
is for spring

Emil Karla loves Paris in the springtime.

new love--
sun and rain mingling
and a lot of wind

Nuri Rosegg fears bruising her pure-white petaled tree in Oslo, Norway.

magnolia buds
tiptoe around
stormy spring

Alan Maley took a cue from nature in Canterbury, U.K.

ripples on the lake--
the wind ruffling the water:
I ruffle your hair…

Rosemarie Schuldes sang nursery rhymes while looking for four-leaf clovers in Mattsee, Austria. In Treviso, Italy, Luciana Moretto likely sang: “ladybug, ladybug fly away home.”

lucky
pig and clover
war is over!

* * *

out of thin air
a ladybird on my hand...
assured windfall

Birnbaum posed this rhetorical question.

a bird passes me by
is there always a hurry
in the sky

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

The next issue of the Asahi Haikuist Network appears Mar. 29. Readers are invited to send haiku about a starting new job 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).