without money--the scent of spring in a wallet
--Marek Kozubek (Bangkok, Thailand)

* * *

reading the menu
the donburi
with local (p)rice
--T.D. Ginting (Medan, Indonesia)

* * *

springtime
the sun conveying its gold
through bank windows
--Eugeniusz Zacharski (Radom, Poland)

* * *

long cold night
I make peace
with a mosquito
--David Cox (Beijing, China)

* * *

monarch butterfly
writing cursive in the wind
love letters to Earth
--Noga Shemer (Storrs, Connecticut)

* * *

Spring ennui--
my cat also yawns
background tune
--Satoru Kanematsu (Nagoya)

* * *

cat-and-dog
basking in the sun
Chinese banter
--Masumi Orihara (Atsugi, Kanagawa)

* * *

this sight of me
in the stray dog’s eyes…
gusts over green rice
--Kyle Sullivan (Kaohsiung, Taiwan)

* * *

mistle thrush
seeds of next year’s
love in the air
--Herb Tate (Jersey, U.K.)

* * *

fallen tree
fresh sawdust piles
nourish seedlings
--Charlie Smith (Raleigh, North Carolina)

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

used bookshop
browsing
from my deckchair
--C.X. Turner (Birmingham, England)

The haikuist leisurely looked for an affordable good book.

Nitu Yumnam composed this line of gratitude: unfurling generosity spring leaves

Helga Stania followed this line of inquiry to Ettiswil, Switzerland: everywhere young leaves I ask for the age of the monastery

Jerome Berglund roamed around a restored monument in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

rebuilt war memorial
dove in flight
dodges the sprinkler

O.R. Melling’s book author tour around Japan ended today. Her haiku was inspired by Matsuo Basho’s travel diary “Oku No Hosomichi” as well as her own pilgrimage on the Camino de Santiago, walking from the south of France across Spain. Sanae Kagaya shared a secret with the Sumida river in Tokyo.

I am sad to go
The last lap of life alone
A lone wolf loping

* * *

between you and me
dressed in blue
river of summer

Lori Kiefer bid adieu from London, England.

edge of the river
a cascade of bluebells
colours your goodbye

Hifsa Ashraf kept watch all night in Rawalpindi, Pakistan.

candlelight vigil
flicker in the eyes
blue flames

Isabella Kramer caressed her faithful cat in Nienhagen, Germany.

British Blue
she lays her old head
into my hand

Murasaki Sagano stirred sleeplessly in Tokyo.

White carnations
shaft of night blue light
with open arms

Alan Maley listened closely to what the forest had to say in Canterbury, England.

a breeze through night leaves:
trees talking to each other--
no one to translate...

Chen-ou Liu entered a forest trail near Ajax, Ontario.

the woodland path
to a sea of bluebells
barefoot, I listen

C.X. Turner was calmed by the fluidity of forests.

forest path…
the shape of this
quiet time

Out for his first walk in three months without crutches, Ian Willey nonetheless couldn’t escape hearing about the political and military conflicts all over the world. In Saarbruecken, Germany, Eva Limbach comes to the realization that wars will never end.

the long mesh fence--
a pair of sparrows squabble
on opposing sides

* * *

bright blue sky
the little boy poses
on a battle tank

Anne-Marie McHarg watched swans circle a pond in London, England. She may have been inspired by Yosa Buson’s classic starting verse (hokku): An evening breeze: water lapping at the leg of a blue heron (Yu-kaze ya mizu ao-sagi no hagi wo utsu).

Water stirs
The willow tree
White swans

Pippa Phillips has been contemplating in St. Louis, Missouri. When Luciana Moretto stopped by the house of an acquaintance, she wasn’t deterred by a small crowd of onlookers admiring a waterfall of blue wisteria. Govind Joshi lives in a delightfully painted village in Dehradun, India.

climbing
the sound
of a waterfall

* * *

just the stunning
wisteria trellis...I don’t
mind the bystanders

* * *

our village
all our homes
have blue doors

J.D. Nelson shifted from the bright sunlight to a bench at Andrews Arboretum in Boulder, Colorado.

cooler in the shade--
spiderwebs in the ivy
beneath the blue spruce

In Tokyo, Shizuku Tsukino penned two bittersweet lines, whereas Junko Saeki needed four.

sorrows included
the clear-blue sky

* * *

the sky is blue
the night is blue
love blue in any shade
even when I’m blue

Matthew Markworth paused for a moment while walking in Miamisburg, Ohio. Monica Kakkar heard nothing for a moment in Chicago, Illinois. Jessica Allyson paused for a moment to recollect an image in Ottawa, Canada.

creeksong...
the gyrations
of a single maple leaf

* * *

deafening silence…
young leaves of the maple tree
quiver in curfew

* * *

their front yard
covered with forget-me-nots
grandpa’s eyes

Terri Thorfinnson shared this moment of reflection. She is member of the Greater Delta Haiku Society in West Sacramento, California.

Azure--the name I chose
for the child
that I never had

Anthony Q. Rabang dropped a few coins in a girl’s palm in exchange for a fragrant bouquet of pure white jasmine, the national flower of the Philippines.

sampaguita vendor
the glow in her eyes
Sunday Psalms

After a gentle evening rain, the streets of Ruse, Bulgaria, were silently decorated in Lilia Racheva’s favorite color. Stephen J. DeGuire watched colors change in Los Angeles, California.

pink moon,
chestnut blossoms
fall without sound

* * *

blue to rose--
chameleon’s inner
Picasso

Mario Massimo Zontini in Parma, Italy, and Francoise Maurice in Draguignan, France, respectively, shed tears in the rain.

the irises
have lost their blue
in the rain

* * *

useless
the blue of the pool
rainy day

A playful rain kept McHarg company.

All day
Rain played hopscotch
On the ground

Nuri Rosegg got drenched by the Black Sea in Burgas, Bulgaria.

on the beach
rain’s pouring down
sea in a bad mood

Richard Bailly set off from Fargo, North Dakota. Govind Joshi opened a door.

taking off
into the blue
lavender

* * *

clear blue sky
a bee entering
the sunflower field

On a Friday evening, Keith Evetts was surprised to see a familiar face take the stage at a jazz bar in Thames Ditton, England.

blues on harmonica
faded denims, who knew
our local librarian

Lyle Smith was treated to something extra at The Palms in Winters, California. The bluesman he went to hear was an ardent environmentalist who worked the message into a few of his songs.

rural theater
Tab Benoit on stage
singing bayou blues

Upturned datura devil’s flowers and the downward facing trumpets of brugmansia angel flowers vied for Mike Fainzilber’s attention in Rehovot, Israel.

trumpet trees in flower
the colors
of the blues

Biswajit Mishra wondered if enough snow fell to go spring skiing in Calgary, Alberta. Dusty Fae will likely stay indoors tomorrow in Miami, Florida.

snow-peaked mountains
the depth
they must be having

* * *

the ocean views
a stormfront
this weekend

Moretto warns divers attempting to enter the Gorgazzo abyss, an enchanting underwater cave in Polcenigo, Italy, that flows deeper than 222 meters--the maximum depth safely reached so far.

Hifsa Ashraf composed this new line of thought: blue lagoon reshaping my daydreams

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The next issues of the Asahi Haikuist Network appear on June 7 and 21. Readers are invited to write a haiku about aloha shirts or unpaid bills at the end of the month. Send haiku 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).