blue lagoon reshaping my daydreams
--Hifsa Ashraf (Rawalpindi, Pakistan)

* * *

dragon boats…
the blue-white scales on
Hong Kong harbor
--David Cox (Beijing, China)

* * *

a small flavour
of river and sea...
hot-smoked salmon
--Xenia Tran (Nairn, Scotland)

* * *

on the other hand
oysters on ice
on a fishing port
--Francoise Maurice (Draguignan, France)

* * *

raw oyster
placing a cumulus cloud
into my mouth
--Dorna Hainds (Lapeer, Michigan)

* * *

wild scallops
cracking open the shell
of a secret
--John Hawkhead (Bradford on Avon, U.K.)

* * *

shucking oysters--
too tired
for sex
--Lorraine Carey (Kerry, Ireland)

* * *

Cold tiles
on which I imitate
a figure skater
--Elisabeth Guichard (Lyon, France)

* * *

shellfish menu
eyes closed
smelling the ocean
--Mike Fainzilber (Rehovot, Israel)

* * *

grass cottage by the sea
the sound
of empty shells
--Slobodan Pupovac (Zagreb, Croatia)

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

spring festival
cajun music and aroma
of boiled crawfish
--Al Gallia (Lafayette, Louisiana)

The haikuist kicked up his heels and devoured local crustaceans, shrimps and crabs at a music and arts cultural celebration. Ocean Day was commemorated on July 15 as a national holiday in Japan; therefore, haikuists featured in today’s column recount how much they enjoy the sea and its bountiful seafood. Mary L. Leopkey literally screamed as she entered the ocean waters off Texada Island, British Columbia.

Squeals
penetrate Silence
water Slide

As early as in 1684, Matsuo Basho enjoyed the poetic summertime sound of fish sellers: ika uri no koe magirawashi hotogisu (Squid vendor’s voice confusing cuckoo). Basho’s travel companion Sora chimed in this composition: Kisakata ya ryoori nani kuu kami matsuri (What special delicacy Is served here, I wonder, coming to Kisagata on a festival day).

Florian Munteanu followed the trail of an escargot in Bucharest, Romania.

snail
a summer cottage
all inclusive

Spanish mackerel (sawara) used to enter the Seto Inland Sea near Osaka every spring and was correspondingly given a Japanese name that combines the Chinese characters “fish” and “spring.” Since 1995, however, rising ocean temperatures diverted the delicious fish to fishing grounds in the relatively cooler seas off Niigata Prefecture. Yutaka Kitajima squinted at polluted skies blowing from China to Joetsu, Niigata Prefecture.

the haze of
yellow dust crawled past...
mint blue skies

Kanematsu reminisced.

Summer dawn--
back to my boyhood
a brief dream

Justice Joseph Prah suggested that eating fast food is only a dream for many children in Accra, Ghana.

morning treat
streets kids gather again
before KFC billboard

Tsanka Shishkova was serenaded on the Marine Day holiday by a collection of three short and distinct orchestral movements that were first played at a boating party launched on July 17, 1717, for King George I of England.

orchestra on boats
playing “Handel’s Water Music”
dancing sailors

Perhaps feeling as if he had been advised to eat cake--a translation of an expression exposing the obliviousness of the French upper class in 1789--Emil Karla updated the metaphor with this haiku.

unpaid tuition fees--
the aloha shirts
of my PhD advisor

Masumi Orihara’s haiku recommends that the Cool Biz campaign initiated in Tokyo 20 years ago needs to be revived to encourage salarymen to replace their dull gray clothing for something brighter, adding, “I’m sure some of them would leave the office at five to go on a trip for the weekend.”

Aloha shirts
on casual Fridays
no overtime, please

Orihara also suggested fatigued office workers return home early to an ice-cold soup that will ease their tensions.

Vichyssoise
on a steaming hot day
passing summer

Zdenka Mlinar was reminded to increase her iodine intake at a restaurant in Zagreb, Croatia.

shrimp in his mouth
my sick thyroid

Sushi is a summer season word (kigo). Invented as a handheld treat in 1824 by Hanaya Yohei, seafood with vinegar-soaked rice became a popular early form of Japanese fast food. Curt Linderman recently dropped by a sushi bar in Seattle, Washington. Jackie Chou felt there was something fishy about her date in Pico Rivera, California.

wasabi!
a drop on my tongue
it melts in my mouth

* * *

imitation crab
he butters me up
with a sushi date

Robin Rich raised a pewter mug of beer at a pub in Brighton, England.

a pint
in the pot
the pink hydrangea wilts

Pupovac sprayed on a little extra woody fragrance before going out to mark his territory in Zagreb, Croatia.

summer night
under the aloha shirt
musk perfume

Murasaki Sagano walked behind an interesting character across a famous intersection in Tokyo.

Aloha shirt
fluttering cranes in Shibuya
on his back

The haikuist petro c.k. wore a splash of color in Seattle, Washington.

Kahu, suddenly--
A butterfly lands
on my Hawaiian shirt

Jean-Hughes Chevy likely smiled before responding mindfully to this question in Paris, France.

daddy please
will my aloha shirt fit
in the trunk?

Just before departing from Ettiswil, Switzerland, Helga Stania made the final decision about family decorum while vacationing abroad.

before closing
she takes his aloha shirt
from the suitcase

There’s no room left at Capota Daniela Lacramioara’s vacation home by the seaside in Galati, Romania. Alan Maley gasped at the entrance to his flat in Canterbury, England.

summertime spiders
already at the cottage
all rooms occupied

* * *

as I open up
the house yawns, takes a deep breath--
a year’s a long time...

Kyle Sullivan had some help dusting his cottage in Kaohsiung, Taiwan.

letting spring in…
wagging tails clear away
some cobwebs

Departing on vacation from Szczecin, Poland, Dorota Kasparewicz looks forward to putting her fingers on tacos, guacamole, margaritas and tequila. Pippa Phillips contemplated harvesting a large succulent that only blooms once in a decade.

holidays
finger on the map
to Mexico

* * *

a lull
on the highway
blue agave

Florin Golban’s cactus flowers once a year, but only overnight.

back at home
the Queen of the Night
lighting the way

Stephen J. DeGuire wonders if anyone will add something to the story of the stone soup that he’s stirring in Los Angeles, California.

stone boiling--
bring the babble back
to the brook

Summer can be a perfect time for dining alfresco while dancing at outdoor events, but those plans can be just as easily disrupted. Yellow and black striped wasps spoiled Cox’s dinnertime show in Beijing, China, just when Shakespeare’s character Malvolio appeared in the staging of “Twelfth Night.” Luciana Moretto will never forget an open-air theater performance accompanied by a chorus of cicadas in the grove of an abbey in the homeland of St. Francis in Umbria, Italy.

Cross-gartered
the yellow jacket full
of bad intentions

* * *

a fretful cicada
spattered me with excrement
holiday memory...

Maley spiced up this haiku.

hemp nettles don’t sting:
I pluck some for my salad
to give it a tang...

James Penha awoke early in Bali, Indonesia.

before I hear rain
tinkling terra cotta tiles
I smell musty air

Satoru Kanematsu watched red velvet curtains drop in Nagoya.

Roses wilt
ending the drama
of fragrance

Archie Carlos holidayed in Oahu, Hawaii. Leon Tefft’s father brought home a souvenir to Greenville, South Carolina.

beach palms
dripping wet all day
my aloha shorts

* * *

home from the islands
dad’s Hawaiian shirt on
the memory bear

Anthony Q. Rabang’s hometown lies near the beach at Santa Catalina, Ilocos Sur, Philippines.

oysters
the taste of the ocean lingers
more than the tan lines

Mario Massimo Zontini slurped the first raw oysters from Nouvelle-Aquitaine, France, after a ban was lifted from harvesting them.

Arcachon oysters
“just picked” says the fisherman:
taste of the ocean

Elizabeth Crocket felt a breeze off Lake Ontario.

wind in my hair
I comb
the beach

A.D. MacDonald celebrated Canada Day on July 1st with a delicious treat.

Crumbling madeleine
In cool lime leaf tea
Proustian heat

Summering at a friendly cottage in Minnesota, Archie G. Carlos heard from the state bird.

neighborly lake
a loon welcomes us
with a call

Monica Kakkar felt worn out by the heat.

warding off the heat--
photographer’s favorite
cottage in the woods

Recalling a tour along the Camino Kodo pilgrimage route, Julia Guzman composed this haiku after returning home to Cordoba, Argentina.

low tide--
the ocean marks
on the red of the torii

Amoolya Kamalnath may have heard the stars sing above Karnataka, India.

an orchestra
at a reception party...
counting the stars

Agnes Eva Savich’s son counted his lucky stars in Austin, Texas.

early summer
my son counts the kids
out of a moving truck

Tran counted fireflies in Nairn, Scotland.

garden cottage--
green and yellow lights
dip through the window

Kathy Watts’ recalled the taste of seafood at the best kitchen in Dundalk, Maryland. Old Bay biscuits go very well with chowders and other seafood soups. Richard Bailly remembered an equally heartwarming kitchen in Fargo, North Dakota.

Old Bay fried in Crisco
memories of my mom’s
crabcakes

* * *

steaming biscuits
fresh from wood-fired oven
grandma’s apron

Ravaglia recommends topping off a delicious dinner in Bologna, Italy, with her mom’s simple recipe for meringues made from egg whites and icing sugar. Junko Saeki torched a homemade baked Alaska dessert in Tokyo. Robin Rich beat the heat. Moretto enjoyed the simple pleasure of opening a new jar of honey that was made last year in Treviso, Italy.

scent of sugar
the spumini tufts are so crumbly
mom’s baking

* * *

lonely night
nothing beats
hot ice cream

* * *

in the queue for
raspberry ripple ice cream
raspberry ripples

* * *

breakfast today
a raspberry-honey taste
summer’s pace

Ed Bremson boosted his immune system Raleigh, North Carolina.

eating fresh cherries,
antioxidants dripping
from my fingertips

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Haiku fresh as fish at http://www.asahi.com/ajw/special/haiku/. The next issues of the Asahi Haikuist Network appear Aug. 2, 16 and 30. Readers are invited to compose haiku related to season creep, lengthening shadows and lingering heat. Mail your haiku 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).