Fragrances--the meadows’ southern accent
--Helga Stania (Ettiswil, Switzerland)

* * *

a white butterfly
rests
in the shade of the trees
--Melissa Dennison (Bradford, England)

* * *

summer’s end
the old oak tree
lengthens its shade
--C.X. Turner (Warwickshire, England)

* * *

In the shade of the tree,
Old man reads old ideas.
--Fresh apples falling.
--David Mitchell (London, England)

* * *

this chestnut tree cave,
cool and bathed in sea-green light:
I empty my mind…
--Alan Maley (Canterbury, England)

* * *

Zen monastery--
the monks’ shadows
moving on the shoji
--Julia Guzman (Cordoba, Argentina)

* * *

the breeze splashes
lights and shadows
night by the sea
--Stoianka Boianova (Sofia, Bulgaria)

* * *

the rise and fall
of cicadas’ trilling
dappled rock trail
--Chen-ou Liu (Ajax, Ontario)

* * *

A mother’s cry:
the sweep of footsteps
out the door
--Laurie Kuntz (West Palm Beach, Florida)

* * *

Enthralled dance:
the Bon festival
all night long
--Satoru Kanematsu (Nagoya)

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

weaving in and out
of the cottage garden
a daydreamer’s sky
--Joanna Ashwell (Durham, England)

The haikuist puttered around her garden while cumulous clouds bloomed overhead. Maria Tosti’s hometown of Perugia, Italy, has been overrun by tourists scurrying to find a shady spot along the cobblestone streets leading from the Gothic cathedral to the marble fountain in an open piazza. Ivan Georgiev called on his experience as a former criminal investigator in Bulgaria to warn show-goers.

hot summer--zigzagging
in the historic center from
shadow to shadow

* * *

pickpocket relay
the baton--a fat wallet
passing through the crowds

Luciana Moretto showed no remorse when “too many tourists in Venice” all traveled in the same direction.

vacation time
wanderlust...
lack of imagination

Anica Marcelic noted how “the heat sometimes brings nervousness to the beach in Zapresic, Croatia.”

beach party--
two men are arguing
in different languages

In today’s column, haikuists wrote about children preparing to go back to school. Alan Maley prepped for creative writing classes.

chalk motes in sunlight,
the classroom is deserted,
term starts tomorrow…

Ian Willey’s boy slowly worked on a summer homework project about birds in Takamatsu, Kagawa Prefecture. The haikuist paced around the house--not to close but not too far--as the sixth grader grappled with paints and colored pencils. Although it was painful to watch his child having a hard time figuring things out, the father remarked, “I guess that’s the whole point of the exercise... but it’s a lot of work!”

my son struggles
with his Bird Week picture--
circling hawk

When school resumes, the education ministry hopes children will spend time outdoors during recess and at least two hours outside on weekends. Outdoor activities are thought to improve vision and pause online game playing. To prevent heatstroke, children will be told to spend time on the shady side of elementary school buildings, or if possible, under a shade tree. Murasaki Sagano suggested longer boughs are needed to nurture families in Tokyo. Lorraine A. Padden kept her distance. Try as she might, Ravaglia could not find any respite from the sun.

This shade tree
enough space for his buggy
and his mom

* * *

shade tree
the length
of an exhale

* * *

sun shining--
even the shadows burn
in my room

Kanematsu noticed an Adam’s apple covered by a five o’clock shadow.

Ripening plums--
grandson has lost his
high-pitched voice

Finding summer love evaded Slobodan Pupovac. Capota Daniela Lacramioara lamented the return of quiet at home in Galați, Romania. Marcelic walked her dog before going to school.

lingering heat
the butterfly flits away
from the shadow of the boy

* * *

back to school--
the doll’s house
quiet

* * *

waiting for the time to go
my dog barks at
my new school bag

Masumi Orihara chided a young man who depended on his parents so much that he hadn’t left home. As a second daughter, when Orihara got a job it was easier to leave the nest, she said, “knowing my parents would always welcome me back.”

too cozy
to outgrow
the shade tree

* * *

daring step forward,
knowing there’s always
my shade tree

Tony Williams said he could “already feel the season creep” at breakfast in Glasgow, Scotland.

a sniff of autumn--
the taste of summer
in a jar of jam

Traditional haiku season wordlists will need to be updated to match Generation Z’s experiences and sensibilities in today’s overheated world. Jerome Berglund can already feel the Zoomers creeping up his chair leg to replace him on the job.

kicking my seat
over and over:
the next generation

Mike Fainzilber entered the cool of an air-conditioned museum in Athens, Greece.

high noon
the only suits
museum guards

Tuyet Van Do slept without air conditioning for the first time this season in Melbourne, Australia. In Houston, Texas, Elaine Parker Adams passed a long night indoors.

late night heat
sleeping out on the patio
power outage

* * *

Houston hurricane
power fails, no air cooler
cruel heat fills night

Some companies don’t seem to care for shade trees. Last month, a used-car dealer admitted the death of Japanese zelkova trees on the roadsides in front of its outlets was due to its indiscriminate use of herbicides. It is hoped that city governments will sustain shade trees in parks and preserve animals in zoos. James Penha visited the Botanical Gardens in Bali, Indonesia. David Cox nodded off at the Lotus Pond in the Taipei Botanical Gardens.

beneath the tree
shading this sunny day
I can cry

* * *

lotus pond…
all those heads
swaying

Govind Joshi noted the reconstruction season shows little sign of abating in Dehradun, India.

road repairs
a cooling breeze
under the Gulmohar tree

Trees were felled to clear many of the construction sites for the 55,620 “kombini” stores that have popped up around Japan. Those ubiquitous convenience stores offer air-conditioned relief for customers who dash in and dash out of cars left to burn on asphalt-covered parking lots. Nuri Rosegg’s heartstrings were pulled by a falling tree in Oslo, Norway. Marek Printer saw a mirage in Kielce, Poland.

new parking lot
old plane tree weakens
and so does my heart

* * *

withered tree
its shadow reaches
into the fountain

If even only one shade tree were to be replanted in a grocery store parking lot, it could attract discerning shoppers like Marta Chocilowska in Warsaw and Teiichi Suzuki in Osaka.

scorching sun
under the sycamore tree
melon seller

* * *

Watermelons
laid under shade trees
unmanned market

Rosemarie Schuldes dozed off. Mel Goldberg in Ajijic, Mexico, and Rosegg, respectively, were inspired by the adage: “a society grows great when old men plant trees in whose shade they shall never sit.”

high noon
the shadow takes a siesta
in the tree crown

* * *

I plant trees
whose shade
I shall never use

* * *

shadow of death
yet old folks plant shade trees
a gift to unborn life

Ivan Georgiev shifted around in a west to east clockwise pattern in Goettingen, Germany.

small tree crown
a flock of sheep moves
with the shadow

Sandra St-Laurent celebrated her birthday by walking the Cotswolds Way in England, “making acquaintances with many herds of colourful cows, many, many sheep and horses. All gathered at some point in the day around the shade of a field’s solitary tree.”

summer field
meditative ruminants
under the master’s shade

Francoise Maurice celebrated a 17th wedding anniversary in Draguignan, France.

midday breeze
between shadow and light
the cicadas’ concert

Every now and then, Ravaglia goes out her kitchen door to shout: “Cicadas... silence!!!!!” but she admitted they “keep me company in this scorching summer.”

sun shining--
in the shade of a leaf
the idleness of the cicada

Luciana Moretto canceled her plans to take a holiday in the Caribbean.

every other day
stifling heat/coolness...
bipolar disorder

John Paul Caponigro held his breath in Cushing, Maine. Berglund paused to observe a bird’s weird antics in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

piercing the silence
the shadow of a heron
passes over frogs

* * *

out of place heron
wings acting
independently

Linus Blessing observed a small passerine bird swerve under a scarecrow to escape from a black-billed killer on shotgun-protected cropland in Switzerland.

magpie’s war cry
tit ducks
thunder of cannons

Bonnie J. Scherer blew her horn in Palmer, Alaska.

trumpet vine
heralding the final stretch
of summer

Maley noted how farmers in Canterbury, England, are bedeviled by season creep. According to Lorelyn De la Cruz Arevalo, when it gets too hot in Bombon, Philippines, farmers simply stretch out under a tree and pull a straw hat over their face.

August is dripping
into September again--
wheat rots in the fields...

* * *

tree shade
darker than the farmer’s
mud-caked feet

Dina Towbin reported that even at night in Brooklyn, New York, its “terribly hot and humid outside.”

Filling city streets
A cacophony of trills,
Pierce the night sky

Murasaki Sagano reported that it remains stifling hot in Tokyo.

Stillness
steaming grass keeps away
cool breeze

Ivan Georgiev worried for triathlon athletes.

in defiance of fate
Refugee Olympic Team
swim the Seine

Urszula Marciniak walked alone in Lodz, Poland. Ashoka Weerakkody walked by a factory in Colombo, Sri Lanka. Angela Giordano spotted a tiny bloom in Avigliano, Italy.

the summer war-walk
from now on it’s just her and
her thin shadow

* * *

broken fridges
casting long shadows
around the works

* * *

endless war--
a nameless flower
among the rubble

Kanematsu was lost in thought behind the shadow of The Thinker, created in 1904. Dejan Ivanovic sat peacefully in Lazarevac, Serbia. Running his fingers through flowing silver hair, Albert Schepers dreamed contentedly under a shade tree that he transplanted 40 years ago in Windsor, Ontario.

Scorching heat--
Rodin’s bronze giant
deep in thought

* * *

the cat curled
around the leg
of a bench in the shade

* * *

under plane tree shade
a spider descends its silk
into my hair

Eleonore Nickolay reminisced about her home of 40 years in Vaires sur Marne, France. Henryk Czempiel closed the covers of his poetry book in Strzelce Opolskie, Poland.

house for sale
sitting in the oak tree shade
for the last time

* * *

time to move on
me and my shadow
we leave the shade

K. Ramesh stretched out the last day of vacation by applying a palm-oil sunscreen on the beach in Chennai, India. Pebbles scorched Pupovac’s sole.

lingering heat...
the lengthening shadows
of palm trees

* * *

stone beach
the seagull lands
on its shadow

Mikael Kales packed up and returned home to Odense, Denmark.

folding towels
the beach fills
with seagull shadows

After leaving the beach, waves captured C.X. Turner’s flag.

frayed sun
in a rock pool
the sandcastle flag

Natalia Kuznetsova had a towel ready to wipe away tears in Moscow, Russia. John Hawkhead put down his “Don Quixote” novel and rested his eyes in Bradford on Avon, U.K.

war-games for kids...
my grandson crying over
the lost battle

* * *

tilting windmills
ranks of war graves
shadow the sun

Nazarena Rampini shipped out from a beach in Liguria, Italy, in the rain.

heavy rain
umbrellas lined up
like soldiers

Tsanka Shishkova followed an ancient Roman road along the Black Sea while birds migrated in V-formations overhead.

strong Adriatic sun
shadows of aromatic laurel trees
on ancient stone pavement

* * *

empty summer house
a muster of storks flies south
Via Pontica

Jennifer Gurney knows what she’s looking for in Broomfield, Colorado.

the shade tree I seek
will shield me from global warming
the choice is clear

Williams gardened until sundown. Pupovac rode home after dark.

late butterflies
on Chinese chives--
the last of the light

* * *

moonlight
riding a bike
a shadow follows me

Ravaglia felt accosted by a trespasser after dark.

shadows trespass
as the sun darkens--
crow’s nest

Milan Rajkumar spent the night pensively walking around a freshwater lake in Northeast India .

evening in Loktak--
the lengthening shadow of
a lone grey heron

Dozing off in Berne, Switzerland, Linus Blessing dreamed in three languages.

mild evening glow
semi yukata
japon mon amour

Isabella Kramer considered learning a native tongue this autumn in Nienhagen, Germany.

frost grass whispers
but no one is able
to understand this language

Stania couldn’t comprehend a line of questioning: unheard the shadowy questions--alpine summer

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

Cast a long shadow on haiku at http://www.asahi.com/ajw/special/haiku/. The next issues of the Asahi Haikuist Network appear Oct. 4 and 18 . Readers are invited to send haiku inspired by scarecrows or the harvest moon 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).