Dragonflies in the spectrum of the sun--flight over a chasm
--Minko Tanev (Sofia, Bulgaria)

* * *

etched in glass--
vibrations of the blue
dragonfly
--C.X. Turner (Birmingham, U.K.)

* * *

Meditation
blue eyes distract me
dragonfly
--Murasaki Sagano (Tokyo)

* * *

dragonflies in love--
in their eyes the colours
of water
--Mario Massimo Zontini (Parma, Italy)

* * *

the lake surface, still--
sudden ducks scud across it,
leaving frothy wakes...
--Alan Maley (Canterbury, England)

* * *

Father and son,
under a weave of cloud and sky,
their wars crisscross.
--Laurie Kuntz (West Palm Beach, Florida)

* * *

hot wind--
crossing the hayfield
a dragon’s shadow
--Daniela Misso (San Gemini, Italy)

* * *

autumn in Gangtok…
at hotel’s door, I brush past
the green dragon’s tail
--Kanchan Chatterjee (Jamshedpur, India)

* * *

crickets in the daily diet
my granddaughter
feeds her bearded dragon
--Wilda Morris (Bolingbrook, Illinois)

* * *

a dragonfly in silence...
all the previous haiku
in the digital trash
--Beata Czeszejko (Warsaw, Poland)

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

storefront mirror
a dragonfly preens
at its reflection
--Mona Bedi (Delhi, India)

The haikuist went window shopping. David Cox, who lives in Shenzen, China, recently visited Osaka to see where Matsuo Basho passed away in 1694--near a refurbished flower shop located in front of Minami-mido temple in Osaka. While visiting, news broke about a slain Japanese schoolboy in Shenzen, China, as well as reports about a flower shop near the victim’s school being inundated with mourners.

Construction site…
near a future florists
writing these last words

At home in Palmer, Alaska, Bonnie J. Scherer’s attention was split by two screens--a computer monitor and the porch door. A locust vied for all of Yutaka Kitajima’s attention in Joetsu, Niigata Prefecture. Satoru Kanematsu regrets being wheelchair-bound in Nagoya.

black & white movies
in technicolor vision
(dragon)flyby

* * *

plop…
on the newspaper
a hopper

* * *

Grasshoppers…
I can’t run or jump
anymore

Maley bemoaned a residential care home.

his eyes are vacant
where is the ‘care’ in this ‘home’?
nothing happens here…

* * *

his eyes are vacant,
TV unwatched, weak tea--cold,
‘home away from home’…

Arvinder Kaur is an avid yogini in Chandigarh India. Justice Joseph Prah stretched out a kink in his shoulders in Accra, Ghana.

wing brush
a dragonfly eyeing
my butterfly pose

* * *

windstorm
readjusting from aches
scarecrow

Eugeniusz Zacharski admired costume jewelry in Darlowo, Poland. Mikael Kales paused in Odense, Denmark. Robin Rich fished from Brighton Marina, England.

late summer sunset
the dragonfly’s ruby eyes
a brooch on her gown

* * *

off the footbridge
a dragonfly catches
galaxies

* * *

silver light
around the fisherman
dragonfly eyes

Angela Giordano scooped water droplets at dawn in Avigliano, Italy. Mauro Battini visited an old pond in Pisa, Italy. Tomislav Maretic sketched love in Trogir, Croatia.

fresh dew--
the hummingbird’s beak
among the lotus flowers

* * *

large water lily leaves--
on the water of the pond
a dragonfly

* * *

mating damselflies
drawing a heart on a leaf--
murmur of the brook

Carl Brennan elicited a sense of satisfaction in North Syracuse, New York. Govind Joshi picked scented leaves from a small pot outside his kitchen window in Dehradun, India.

Scent of morning
the basil just watered--
cat purring

* * *

harvesting
rain washed peppermint
fragrant fingers

Isabella Kramer rested her eyes for a moment in Nienhagen, Germany. Refika Dedic’s mouth dropped for a second in Bihac, Bosnia and Herzegovina.

garden day
a fat snail curls up
between my toes

* * *

mom, mom
what is this on my leg--
small and slimy

Caterpillars, butterflies and moths are sensitive to changes in habitats, temperature and plants on which they thrive. A running partner encouraged Dan C. Iulian in Bucharest, Romania. Urszula Marciniak pitied a defeated insect in Lodz, Poland.

a butterfly
accompanies me awhile
marathon

* * *

a weakened beetle
the shadow of the tree
is so close

Richard L. Matta observed a sculpted swimmer in San Diego, California.

a stirring
in soft latissimus dorsi
olympic butterfly

The more haikuists know about insects, the better informed they will be about the changes affecting the natural world. Paying his respects in Bradford on Avon, United Kingdom, John Hawkhead heard from someone on the other side. Nitu Yumnam listened to a praying mantis in West Bengal, India.

spirit medium
a small white butterfly
lands on a war grave

* * *

another war
the mantis’s plea
unheard

Chante Primas shut her eyes in Blytheville, Arkansas.

summer sun
screaming with hands up
at amusement park

As a boy, Kitajima sat contentedly under an elephant-ear-shaped leaf. When dried, he used it as a hand fan.

Grandpa’s gift...
a large lotus leaf
for sunshade

Paul Millar left the well-trodden forest trail to kick up leaves in colorful Bedford, U.K.

old leaves
wandering
here and there

John Daleiden tried to nurture a shade tree with golden fan-shaped leaves in Arizona’s Sonoran Desert. Kitajima enjoyed driving without turning on the air conditioner.

little comfort
beneath the wilting ginkgo
tree leaves

* * *

Autumn wind...
inside the glove box
a lost fan

A traditional cycle of days, months and seasons painstakingly recorded by poets, saijiki (haiku almanacs) were historically centered upon the environment and activities taking place in Kyoto. For centuries, those calendars benefited armchair haikuists who could refer to them without the need of actually observing nature. Dan Iulian is a materials scientist in Bucharest, Romania. Mihovila Ceperic received a “visit to the 5th floor of the apartment” in Rijeka, Croatia.

Wide-eyed wonder
a dragonfly
in amber

* * *

September rain
a golden-eyed look
on my hand

Disappointed that the Kyoto Protocol signed in 1997 has not done enough to save the planet from greenhouse gas emissions, Zacharski angrily struck a match in Darlowo, Poland. Winds from the Sahara reached Giordano in Avigliano, Italy.

poor harvest
the scarecrow burns
on the pyre

* * *

fiery dawn--
the desert wind
moves the clouds

Tanev was initially attracted by a deep violet vapor in a bottle, which when released in warm temperatures becomes a poison gas that will irritate the eyes, nose and throat. Monica Kakkar turned a shade of dark purple in Mahabaleshwar, India. Rosa Maria Di Salvatore smacked rich ochre-red onto blotting paper in Catania, Italy.

iodine vapor--
dragonfly eyes
through the reeds

* * *

mulberry hands
after hours in the orchard…
match her lip color

* * *

harvest moon…
changing the colour
of my lipstick

Climate change has disrupted many of the traditional haiku experiences recorded in Kyoto, and surprised Tsanka Shishkova in Sofia, Bulgaria. Zontini felt robbed in Parma, Italy. Destiny Washington observed a heat anomaly in Greenwood, Massachusetts.

late autumn
first bloom of camellia
in the hedge

* * *

unusual heat
where’s the morning dew
of yore?

* * *

delta sun
even sunflowers
droop in the heat

Haikuists who reject the outdated saijiki timelines set in Kyoto are going outdoors to reconnect with the shifting seasons. For example, Zacharski reminds us that livestock fodder is basically preserved sunshine. Done on a day of sunny weather, haymaking works best--for nature and farmer--when attuned to the actual flow of the changing seasons, rather than tied to a fixed calendar date.

haymaking day
the spirit of the meadow
rises to the sky

This autumn, the westerlies have meandered much further north than usual. The winds were pushed up by high pressure systems causing sunny weather, rising temperatures and record heat in Canada--as much as 10 degrees higher than average. Liz Gibbs noted the higher temperatures moved harvest dates forward in Calgary, Alberta, and delayed the coloring of leaves

stuffing and stitches
on battlefield of corn
a murder of crows

In Toronto, Ontario, Marshall Hryciuk waved farewell to migrating butterflies and sometime later he watched acrobats.

locust leaves
waft down
to the last monarch

* * *

chipmunk flying
leafless tree
to leafless

Anna Goluba recalled where the squirrel’s nuts were stored in Warsaw, Poland.

A bit of magic: a squirrel
Jumped into a pile of leaves
And reappeared in my dream

Athletes will often try to make something happen by imagining it and consciously thinking that it will happen: Bedi’s family in Delhi, India, manifested a gold medal.

grandma stands up
for the national anthem
olympic win

Junko Saeki self-hypnotized in Tokyo. Suresh Babu played in Thiruvalla, India. In Bradford, England, Melissa Dennison was mesmerized by the most beautiful moon of the year.

my finger circling to
catch a dragonfly
I catch myself

* * *

hide and seek--
the dragonfly finds me
at 180 degrees

* * *

in a dragonfly’s eye
a 360-degree view
of the harvest moon

Mike Fainzilber made a 360-degree circular pan in Rehovot, Israel. Perhaps that’s why he sported a new pair of super dark shades?

dragonfly eyes
in all directions
surveillance cameras

* * *

sunglasses in the shade
too cool
to see

Stephen J. DeGuire imagined different endings to a movie he saw in Los Angeles, California.

compound eyes--
Rashomon effect
on dragonflies

Biswajit Mishra stared to no avail in Calgary, Alberta.

light breeze
a dragonfly over the pond
avoids my eyes

Kaur faced sadness. Marie Derley faced the look of death in Brussels, Belgium. Kanematsu faced a television set.

my grief
in the eyes of a dragonfly
blue evening

* * *

before work
looking a dead dragonfly
eye to eye

* * *

First debate:
grimacing Harris
bragging Trump

Sue Colpitts watched a spider lose its dinner in Peterborough, Ontario.

glaring
at the dragonfly
simple-eyed spider

Joanna Ashwell eyed a helicopter-like landing in Durham, England. T.D. Ginting shared two points of view in Medan, Indonesia.

in the eye
of a rainstorm
a dragonfly landing

* * *

don’t show, don’t tell
your eyes
(p)resenting the war

Cleaning up his attic, Jerome Berglund found a striking photo of nose art--a fighter airplane with a beautiful pinup on its fuselage.

sectioning the trunk
grandma
painted on a plane

Kuntz wrote about an empty nest. Foteini Georgakopoulou didn’t have time to wave goodbye from Athens, Greece. She said she longed for Tokyo.

A mother’s cry:
the sweep of footsteps
out the door

* * *

the wind
chased the dragonfly
away she went

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

The next issue of the Asahi Haikuist Network appears on Oct. 18. Readers are invited to send haiku about what they long for, 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).