looking at the winter stars a child learns to count
--Angela Giordano (Avigliano, Italy)

* * *

game of life--
doctor’s guess is
50/50
--Stephen J. DeGuire (Los Angeles, California)

* * *

pawn on e4--
when he grows up
he’ll be a queen
--Marie Derley (Ath, Belgium)

* * *

at the market
XS carrots
XXL price
--Nuri Rosegg (Oslo, Norway)

* * *

old jacket pocket
crumpled bills from years ago
a gift from myself
--Nada Mutlaq (Riyadh, Saudi Arabia)

* * *

more dough
less bread
morning toast
--Robin Rich (Brighton, U.K.)

* * *

election
one side counts infinite
dough balls
--Richard L. Matta (San Diego, California)

* * *

I am trying on
a mechanical watch--will
it slow down the time?
--Levko Dovgan (Lviv, Ukraine)

* * *

I saw one, maybe two dragonflies
and they looked
lost
--Patrick Sweeney (Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania)

* * *

wishful thinking
one after another
snowflakes
--Hifsa Ashraf (Rawalpindi, Pakistan)

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

first bite of persimmon
the hundredth autumn haiku
in my notebook
--Marek Printer (Kielce, Poland)

The haikuist penned a 17-syllable haiku to mark a milestone achievement.

In today’s column, haikuists explore memorable numbers. Let’s begin with one by Sheila Barksdale whose dad, “once put a fiver on a horse in an internationally famous race with crazy odds of 100-1. And it won!” The haikuist recently noticed a similarly named horse in Gotherington, U.K., and “placed a bet on it in memory of my dad. And it won! At 100-1.”

searching for meaning
in the names of racehorses
I pick a winner

Writing from Zagreb, Croatia, Slobodan Pupovac composed a 17-syllable haiku to celebrate having his 100th haiku published in the Asahi Haikuist Network column since 2017.

late summer
a hundred of my haiku
in the land of persimmons

Francoise Maurice was frustrated by entropy in Draguignan, France.

nursing home
one hundred pieces of puzzle
loose on the table

John Hamley weathered a yearend postal strike in Canada. Yutaka Kitajima won’t soon forget the 1/1 Noto Peninsula earthquake that spilled his afternoon tea and spoiled his dinner in Joetsu, Niigata Prefecture.

Chopping firewood
five Christmas cards
this year

* * *

At last, uncorking
New Year’s vintage... postponed
under aftershocks

Can you remember your best haiku? Here’s one by Linus Blessing in Berne, Switzerland.

only one persimmon, yet
sticky fingers, and
one haiku

If your haiku was penned in 5-7-5 syllables, perhaps it would be an easier sequence to remember. Richard Bailly entered a building-entry password in Fargo, North Dakota.

nineteen twenty-three
admittance code reception
climbing the stairway

Counting in Sofia, Bulgaria, just the other night on Jan. 29, Tsanka Shishkova welcomed the sixth of 12 zodiac animals with this haiku. Satoru Kanematsu procrastinated in Nagoya.

Snake’s eye
washi paper umbrella
dark purple glow

* * *

New Year’s Eve--
I should have finished
this and that

Alan Maley referred to the ancient Egyptian symbol for cyclic renewal--when beginnings meet endings.

Ouroborus year,
slowly eating its own tail,
swallowing the months

Philip Davison explores the geological weathering and transition of farmland in Dublin, Ireland.

With wind for mortar
this dry stonewall borders the
field that gave the stones

Maryanne Sanders anxiously started off the Year of the Snake in Adelaide, Australia. Shishkova counted petals.

Anxiety snaked in
Cleverly coiling itself
Into my gut depths

* * *

year of the snake
delicate pink flowers
of jade-plants

Maria Tosti enjoyed a visit to the spa on a milestone birthday in Perugia, Italy.

changing skin--my first
sixty years old in the year
of the green wood snake

Nicoletta Ignatti anticipated guests or perhaps felt like a wallflower in Castellana Grotte, Italy.

New Year’s Eve--
straightening the picture
on the wall

Surprised to find Francisco Goya’s 1800 oil painting of a reclining nude in his mailbox in Joetsu, Niigata Prefecture, Kitajima conjured up a white snake in a pithy 3-5-3-syllable haiku. Looking east from his house in Osaka, Teiichi Suzuki “could see snowcapped mountains… Koya temples at its bosom.”

A white snake
posing as Maja...
New Year’s card

* * *

Wearing lace
of fluffy snow on
her shoulders

Ruth Esther Gilmore penned this reverberating haiku in Lower Saxony, Germany.

a crane’s ambit
between the snow dustings
our life echoes

Beate Conrad prayed for “a positively exciting new year” in Hildesheim, Germany.

taste of time
the world a snake of un-
questioned strength

A.J. Johnson counted dots circling overhead Virginia. Marek Printer counted circles in Kielce, Poland. Srini chugged a beer and stacked the empty plastic cup.

usual bird count--
vultures outnumber
bald eagles

* * *

alone in a bar
counting the beer coasters
on the tables

* * *

year of the snake
at a Hong Kong bar
a beer snake lengthening

In Brighton, England, Robin Rich began reciting a series of numbers--each the sum of the preceding two: 0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5…

counting branches
Fibonacci series
eye spy

Maley took note of behavioral presence and reactions in Canterbury, England. Kathabela Wilson composed an ode for her mother in Pasadena, California.

I read old letters,
see patterns repeat themselves--
first love--then comes loss…

* * *

her presence
to speak in the present
to the end

In Ivanic Grad, Croatia, D.V. Rozic has had enough birthdays to realize that 80 percent of life’s consequences come from 20 percent of causes. Ashoka Weerakkody has his own theory about life in Colombo, Sri Lanka.

the Pareto rule--
a joke of vital few
in my eighties?

* * *

toys
pausing evolution of man
eight to eighty

Lafcadio counted in Chattanooga, Tennessee.

forty-seven
she mentions the word
genocide

Julia Guzman brushed a first stroke in Cordoba, Argentina.

first sumi-e of the year
a snake sliding down
the wooden ladder

Wilda Morris watched an exciting game in Bolingbrook, Illinois. Melissa Dennison watched a cricket match in Bedford, England. Murasaki Sagano watched Shohei Ohtani’s uniform number move around all the bases.

t-ball time out
the batter runs
to the girls’ room

* * *

sports on tv
husband and wife
opposite goals

* * *

Playoff games
booing the first D.H.
Dodgers 17

In Lodz, Poland, Urszula Marciniak reread a magazine that’s been her favorite ever since she was a teenager.

deep autumn
I am reading “Seventeen”
for the umpteenth time

Gareth Nurden recalled a popular game in Wales, U.K. Rashmi VeSa played with homophones in Bengaluru, India. Robin Rich played a musical word game in Brighton, England.

old games
we used to play
memory cards

* * *

Year of the Snake
the twists and turns
of his tale

* * *

winter organ stops
pulled all the way out
Chopin Spring Waltz

Lorne Henry surprised herself today. Ana Drobot changed herself today in Bucharest, Romania.

Czech language
not spoken for thirty years
words surface

* * *

snake bracelet--
the way I change
when I wear it

Can you remember your landline number from when you were young? Today, Rosegg works as a phone interviewer for a statistics company—“Mostly it’s a dull job, but occasionally, I get celebrities on the phone.”

on the phone
surveys after surveys
fed up with numbers

Mike Fainzilber dabbled in tasseography, the divination of patterns in tea leaves, coffee dregs or wine sediment.

my coffee grounds
no story
for the fortune teller

Sanjana Zorinc experienced the Doppler shift of sound waves in Bjelovar, Croatia.

morning coffee--
the whistle of a locomotive
approaches and fades away

Long after you’ve forgotten what number the automated bank machine wants to know before it will dole out any cash, you’ll remember the 7 digits of your telephone number and zip code. DeGuire had neither cash nor coins.

checkout line…
a stranger provides
needed change

In Melbourne, Australia, Tuyet Van Do knows exactly how much he gets in salary. Laurie Kuntz checked out in West Palm Beach, Florida. Jennifer Gurney had to carefully pick and choose in Broomfield, Colorado. Having to do with less, Jessica Allyson reluctantly lined up at what used to be the quickest check-out counter at her neighborhood grocery in Ottawa, Canada. Eugeniusz Zacharski will stir fry tonight in Radom, Poland.

grocery shopping...
on the bill
half of weekly earnings

* * *

November:
democracy sold
for a cheaper price of Pop Tarts

* * *

putting things back
in every aisle
grocery shopping

* * *

costing more:
ten items
or less

* * *

supermarket
my last pennies
buy bamboo shoots

Gareth Nurden prayed for luck in Wales, U.K.

tired well
the weight of the world
in one penny

Students at the International University of Kagoshima were hard-pressed to find something affordable for lunch at nearby stores. Comparing a shopping spree to a Mario Adventure story, Kana Inamine, Chika Kawasaki, Kana Tokorozaki, Yuka Kirino, Satoshi Saito and Kouhei Matsushita explained their hardships in these 17-syllable haiku to their English teacher.

A tour around stores
to seek something cheap
a hard adventure

* * *

Price escalation
wait until it’s a bargain
remains on the shelf

Melissa Dennison got chilled handing out leftovers in Bradford, England. Joanna Ashwell found a solution.

handing apples
over the fence
a problem shared

* * *

north wind
at the food bank
bruised apples

Mark Gilbert stayed awake all night during a hospital vigil in Nottingham, England. T.D. Ginting measured changes in poetic time in Medan, North Sumatra. Dennison lost track of time.

longest day
counting syllables
counting beats

* * *

changing a kigo--
the temperature
that defi(n)es the season

* * *

midwinter gift...
cherry blossoms
out of season

Urszula Marciniak will remember her grandmother forever in Lodz, Poland. David Cox tried counting the number of unknown soldiers.

grandma’s autumn
she begins to count to
infinity

* * *

brick by brick
the candleflame
Warsaw Uprising

Ramona Linke counted slowly: winter stars and the scent of cinnamon silence inside me

Giordano counted a colorful poetic line: New Year’s Eve fireworks, colored stars on the roofs

Minko Tanev counted the fallen in Sofia, Bulgaria.

leaf after leaf--
the endless rows
autumn numbers

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

The next issues of the Asahi Haikuist Network appear Feb. 7 and 21. Readers are invited to send haiku about warding off evil spirits at springtime 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).