woodpecker on the old tin roof contrapuntal cicadas
--Kimberly A. Horning (St. Augustine, Florida)

* * *

constancy
in love
night and day
--Eugeniusz Zacharski (Radom, Poland)

* * *

Evening glow--
unexpected call
an old friend
--Satoru Kanematsu (Nagoya)

* * *

he jogs on
into autumn sunshine
through trees made of light
--Padraig O’Morain (Dublin, Ireland)

* * *

heatwave...
learning to play dice
with ice cubes
--Ana Drobot (Bucharest, Romania)

* * *

an eye for an eye,
a tooth for a tooth--never
a peace for a peace...
--Alan Maley (Canterbury, England)

* * *

tough to stop
expanding war zones--
plummeting sun
--Masumi Orihara (Atsugi, Kanagawa)

* * *

The cruise ship
in the South Atlantic
falls off the map
--David Cox (Shenzhen, China)

* * *

evensong
cicadas yield the floor
to crickets
--Jessica Allyson (Ottawa, Ontario)

* * *

frost forecast--
I gather summer
in my arms
--Peggy Pilkey (Dartmouth, Nova Scotia)

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

fast approaching
from behind
courtesy bell
--Jerome Berglund (Minneapolis, Minnesota)

Walking as fast as he could down the street, the haikuist looked over his shoulder to see autumn riding right behind. In Belgrade, Serbia, Damir Janjalija cried at summer’s end.

Farewell summer
Among the raindrops
sparrows cry too

Kanematsu noted that Prime Minister Fumio Kishida will bow out in a few days.

Summer’s end--
deciding to quit
premier

The political leader was nicknamed “the four-eyed tax hiker” due to his eyewear and raising taxes for a huge defense buildup. Orihara suggested that following the prime minister’s three years in power, his replacement needs foresight, hindsight and peripheral vision--a full 360-degree view of what is going on.

A requisite
for the candidacy
dragonfly-eyed view

Catching his breath, Berglund devoured this line of thought: three years’ passage eating dates

In the days leading up to the autumnal equinox, haiku poet Masaoka Shiki ate heartily even though he was sick in bed. Hovering between life and death he brush-stroked: kurimeshi ya byonin nagara okurai (chestnut rice--though I’m a sick man, a glutton). On Sept. 19, 1902, he left behind this death haiku: ototoi no hechima no mizu mo torazariki (they haven’t gathered water from the sponge gourd for a second day). At a bar in in Western Australia, Michael Buckingham Gray prolonged last night trying to lessen his own pain.

ordering
one more beer
burnt evening

Slobodan Pupovac ate lunch under a drooling tree in Zagreb, Croatia. Capota Daniela Lacramioara followed the hungry gaze of handsewn eyes in Romania. Melon juice dribbled down Mario Massimo Zontini’s cheek in Parma, Italy.

nooning
a drop of pine resin
on my back

* * *

high heat--
the scarecrow staring
at a melon

* * *

the heat!
they’ve never been so sweet:
the melons

Padraig O’Morain’s dog had a treat on the evening Sirius, the Dog Star, started to rise. Ancient Greek astrologists connected the constellation with heat, drought, sudden thunderstorms, lethargy, fever and mad dogs.

after summer
dismantled barbecue
our greyhound licks the grill

Kanematsu’s neighbor got mad. Terri Thorfinnson sweltered in West Sacramento, California.

Scorching heat--
the woman next door
scolding kids

* * *

sweltering heat
another day inside
looking outside

Natalia Kuznetsova kept watch in Moscow, Russia.

the old shepherd
napping under the oak tree
his dog wide awake

Zontini tracked the motion of the sun from morning to night. At twilight, Charlie Smith stretched his arms wide to behold a shining snowy crown. The sun will reach the equinoctial point by this Sunday, appearing to rise due east and set due west.

country road
turning east, turning west
sunflowers

* * *

Mt. Hood winked
pink in east and west
Portland dusk

C.X. Turner kept her eye on the horizon.

sunflower sky
on my shoulder
his tousled hair

David Fox toured Hualien, Taiwan.

Ripples on the lake--
another jet fighter
circumnavigating

John Zheng’s time was equally split between watching soldiers and sportsmen in Itta Bena, Mississippi.

midsummer heat
same channel news
of war and games

The four equidistant astronomical seasons, defined by two solstices and two equinoxes, are based on the position of the Earth as it moves around the sun. On the equinoxes, Buddhists believe that the barrier between the physical world and spirit world is at its thinnest. In Sofia, Bulgaria, Stoianka Boianova fears climate change has created hell on Earth. Falling into a deep slumber, Drobot’s heart may have missed a beat.

hellish times
the sun seems to be shining
all night long

* * *

shade tree--
just a glimpse of
the afterworld

Monica Kakkar came across a small pool of drinking water in Punjab, India, that is thought to be guarded by a spirit and to have healing qualities.

slowly as the sun
rises from a sacred well--
cicada chorus

Teiichi Suzuki kept cool sitting by a water well at the end of his day in Osaka.

The planet
a floating watermelon
in the universe

In contrast to astronomical seasons, meteorological divisions of the seasons are based on weather and climate. Pilkey’s plants withered in the heat.

prolonged drought--
hydrangeas protest
climate change

Seasonal changes come quickly in the far north. Spring can be so short it is counted in days. Bonnie J. Scherer waited patiently for tiny flowers to bloom in Palmer, Alaska. Miaki Shibaki was inspired to paint with pastel colors at Hokusei University, Sapporo.

Impatiens--
the state of waiting for the
plant to green up

* * *

ice melts
appears a big canvas
blue, white and pink

The summer sun that shines endlessly in polar areas provides a few months of relative warmth. These past two summers, however, the near 24 hours of sunlight melted vast ocean passageways through the north and started far-reaching wildfires. The result released megatons of carbon that will likely sustain warming trends for years to come. The heat encouraged shrubs, willows and alders to take root in formerly treeless tundra regions. Helga Stania eyed the horizon.

treeline boundary
I become
Small

Global warming is pushing the treeline northward to the Arctic Ocean. Sandra St-Laurent lives in Whitehorse, Yukon.

calling from the deep
the song of waves
in its leaves

St-Laurent said her family “struggled with forest fires” that caused “no visibility, poor air quality…ah! climate change!” but added that they all reacted proactively by applying “another fresh coat of paint on the lemonade stand in preparation of a busy El Nino summer.”

fresh paint coat
on the lemonade stand
« El Nino »

Treelines are also rising higher in mountainous areas. J.D. Nelson composed this haiku in Boulder, Colorado.

the tree’s yellow leaves
glow in artificial light
soon there will be snow

Astronomically speaking, the sun’s arc is beginning to dip below the horizon north of the Arctic Circle. Meteorologically speaking, autumnal heatwaves are blowing in from the south and maintaining higher than usual temperatures. Majima Sakuya, a university student in Sapporo, doesn’t seem to fear the coming of fall when trees shed their leaves.

a very hot day,
cars reflect the sunlight;
longing for the scary trees

An El Nina cold front is forecast to arrive soon, though. That means haikuists won’t have much time to prepare for a long dark winter to freeze over the land of the midnight sun. Scherer said she “blinked and the season changed here in Alaska. Too soon, it will snow on more than just the mountaintops.”

dust to ashes
my curved trunk bending
away from the sun

T.D. Ginting sketched a cetacean found dead floating in the Malacca Strait near Medan, Indonesia.

pencil on paper--
the anatomy
of a dolphin, st(r)anding

David Cox strolled the beach in Puget Sound, Washington. By lunchtime, the haikuist was tempted by the name of a signature dish on a dessert menu.

monochrome morning--
a pair of lolloping
orcas in the bay

* * *

his words to me--
death by chocolate
on a postcard

Kanematsu peered into his mailbox. His grandson brought home souvenirs from the beach.

No letters
from dear pen pal, yet
summer’s end

* * *

Summer’s end--
Hawaiian seashells
on my desk

C.X. Turner recalled the moment of first steps in Birmingham, England.

haystacks
the golden memories
of toddler years

John Zheng penned this parched line in Ittabena, Mississippi: retreating sun--a farmer’s shuffling steps through wheat fields

Suzuki enjoyed the remains of the day.

Rattan chair--
watering my garden
evening of my life

In Los Angeles, Stephen J. DeGuire recalled a special moment in 1986 that he spent with an old man.

boy reshoots
photo as old man
Halley’s tail

Murasaki Sagano prepared for a scheduled Sept. 27th flyby of a comet visible to the naked eye in Tokyo.

C/2023 A3
on the calendar
wipe my bifocals

In Rehovot, Israel, Mike Fainzilber updated his list of things to do in the year 2061.

awaiting Halley’s Comet
trying to escape
the sun

Going on four generations now, Mary L. Leopkey’s family passed another splendid summer entertaining at a cottage by the sea on Texada Island, British Columbia. In Austin, Texas, Kimberly Kuchar entered heaven feetfirst.

summer kitchen
scent of homemade bread
sandy feet

* * *

lake cottage
I step off the pier
into the clouds

Benedicte Kusendila bathed in Belsele, Belgium. Ken Sawitri soaked away her cares with fruits and flowers in Blora, Indonesia.

wave by wave
the lake greets these woods
forest bath

* * *

summer bath bombs
thoughts gently float
into the bubbles

Writing from Bombon, Philippines, Lorelyn De la Cruz Arevalo imagined taking a group portrait on the heavily militarized border dividing the two Koreas.

the north and south
oK in a wefie--
golden moment

Writing from Karachi, Pakistan, Yasir Farooq suggested the world must be at a loss for words.

loud silence
of words
the falling bombs

Birds took refuge in a shelter outside Maley’s home.

in the nesting box
these blue tits setting up house--
bombs falling in Kyiv…

Renewed bombardments made Marie Derley recall the wars that swept past previous generations in Ath, Belgium.

bombings again
all the old haikus
look new

Angela Giordano dried a line of tears: among the winds of war the desperate crying of children

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

Celebrate nature’s bounty 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 Masaoka Shiki’s haiku: Sanzen no haiku o kemishi kaki futatsu (leafing through three thousand haiku two persimmons), 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).