snowflakes each fills my emptiness footprints ahead of me
--Justice Joseph Prah (Accra, Ghana)

* * *

News of war
and the deer
eats my seedlings
--John Hamley (Marmora, Ontario)

* * *

steaming
sesame seed bagels…
queue at the new pastry shop
--Steliana Cristina Voicu (Ploiesti, Romania)

* * *

Doll’s wedding
the bridesmaid
wears a bread bangle
--R. Suresh Babu (Thiruvalla, India)

* * *

seed pearl buds forming
on sticks of winter blackthorn--
two months too early
--Alan Maley (Canterbury, England)

* * *

clear skies
a vine of bluebells
braided on a lemon tree
--Govind Joshi (Dehradun, India)

* * *

dragon fruit
the shade of sunset
the zest of death
--Nuri Rosegg (Oslo, Norway)

* * *

Deutzia
in full bloom tossing
honeybees
--Yutaka Kitajima (Joetsu, Niigata)

* * *

On the way home,
where are you?
Orange Osmanthus
--Misaki Sugimoto (Takamatsu, Kagawa)

* * *

starlit
the last mango
marked down
--Joanna Ashwell (Bradford, England)

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

dried persimmons
I close my eyes
to be in Greece again
--Marek Printer (Kielce, Poland)

One bite from a succulent fruit made the haikuist conjure an idyllic island landscape with its scent of pine trees; the sound of cicadas, taste of honey, and the warmth of sun-kissed skin. David Cox toyed with the homophone flare/flair after seeing a friend pose for an online selfie photo with oranges and almonds in sunny Crete, Greece.

solar flair…
another bite of
your orange cake

In today’s column, haikuists share memorable moments they’ve spent with fruit during the four seasons. Whether it’s spring’s first berries; melons, and stone fruit at the height of summer; figs, quince, persimmons, apples and pears in autumn; or grapefruit in winter, fruits harvested from trees and vines are the succulent reminders of life’s sweetness. Rosa Maria Di Salvatore attended a wedding in Catania, Italy.

the sweetness
of a bride’s smile…
orange fruit flowers

Winter has ended, but there’s still time to compose a haiku to preserve a special moment when you enjoyed fruit pies, jams or marmalades during the winter months. Anica Marcelic enjoyed drinking and writing about a fruity mix of mandarins, clementines and oranges, in Zapresic, Croatia.

in fruit punch
orange slices
and dried persimmon

A squeezed lemon mixed with hot water and honey in the depths of winter is a rejuvenating refreshment. Fruits are loaded with vitamins, minerals, antioxidants, phytonutrients and hydration. Mike Fainzilber relaxed in a fruit-scented bath, thought to be rich in vitamin C to promote skincare, in Rehovot, Israel.

yuzu in the waters
refreshing
our defenses

In wintertime, writing a lemon emoji on social media can mean someone is single but not particularly looking for anyone to date. Joshua St. Claire composed this haiku which referred to a spiny Chinese orange tree that bears sweetly scented flowers but its orange fruit is inedible.

a smile
that doesn’t reach the eyes
poncirus moon

Ramona Linke enjoyed a freshly-peeled orange to celebrate the spring festival in China, which began with the first new moon of the year.

Black Moon
she peels an orange

Freshly squeezed citrus orange juice is the hallmark of a perfect breakfast. In Fargo, North Dakota, Richard Bailly tamed the unstable atoms in his body that can damage cells, cause illness and premature aging.

addressing
excessive free radicals
pomegranate

Francoise Maurice dreams of the preserves she plans to bottle this summer in Draguignan, France.

cold evening
the bare branches
of the apricot tree

Teiichi Suzuki looks forward to seeing ume blossoms appear this month in Osaka. He hopes to pick enough unripe green plums in June to steep in a glass bottle of distilled liquor and sugar for a year or two. Joshi looks forward to harvesting his own citrus crop a few more winters from now. Marcelic selected the perfect spot to turn over soil on the Adriatic coast.

White plum tree
insensible signs
of blooming

* * *

lemon seedling
rising out of compost pile
spring surprise

* * *

planting an orchard--
leeward place
for the persimmon tree

Monica Kakkar composed this delicious haiku moment about mulberry-colored lips and handprints that likely took place in April after having spent the whole morning picking dark purple berries in an orchard located in India.

mulberry handprints--
after hours in the orchard
match her lip color

When in season, there’s not much preparation that has to be done before eating ripe fruit. Giuliana Ravaglia loves the taste of fresh fruit during the early summer in Bologna, Italy. Sankara Jayanth Sudanagunta waited for just the right moment in Hyderabad, India. Margaret Ponting enjoyed a visit to Dandenong market in Melbourne, Australia.

my heart a waterfall
rhizome of ferns and blackberries
on the insolent edge of dawn

* * *

midsummer...
finally, mangoes
at their cheapest

* * *

cosmopolitan market stalls
bustling with activity
boxes of ripe mangoes to share

Nuri Rosegg’s favorite fruit grew slowly from a rose-pink flower on a dark green, glossy leaved tree and finally ripened during equatorial tropical rainy season. The juicy, sweet and sour delicacy was shipped in a box all the way from the Philippines to his local grocer in Oslo, Norway, but he just couldn’t afford the queen of fruits.

mangosteen
travelled far--so near
and yet so far

Luciana Moretto praised late summer pickings in Treviso, Italy.

Praiseworthy
the bilberry pickers...
poor eyesight

Although he adopted the Japanese banana tree (basho) as his namesake in the year 1680, Matsuo Basho didn’t have anything delicious to say about the ornamental banana tree blowing around outside his hut in autumn typhoon winds: basho nowaki shite tarai ni ame o kiku yo kana

water tub raindrops
banana leaves in a storm
the sounds of the night

Japan began importing edible bananas in 1903, the first shipment came from Taiwan. Bananas from India, Philippines, Brazil and Ecuador are consumed more than any other fresh fruit in the world.

Printer celebrated a convocation. Maley put his hands into a thorny bramble to pick dark berries made sweeter by a light frost. Jean-Hughes Chevy waited too long to go wild berry-hunting in Paris, France.

graduation day
blueberries on the bush
so sweet

* * *

the wind’s sudden bite--
blackberry leaves turning red--
soon no leaves at all ...

* * *

out of reach
the last blackberries
of summer

High temperatures devastated the brand value of cherries from Yamagata Prefecture in last autumn’s picking season, leading to the poorest harvest in 30 years. Local farmers, fruit dealers and prefectural councilors worry that buyers have started looking farther north for cherries. Florian Munteanu might have received a black forest cake filled with cherries in Bucharest, Romania.

the last night before
evil spirits fly on the earth
cherry tree birthday

Ivan Georgiev checked for freshness in Gottingen, Germany.

watermelon thump test
the high-pitched giggle
of my daughter

When the Welsh poet Dylan Thomas penned a “Portrait of the Artist as a Young Dog” in 1940, he narrated a rich woman from Swansea, who said that she doesn’t mind pears, but that she “can’t bear peaches.” Kitajima lamented that he “can’t afford to get either fruit easily.”

Passing through
piles of autumn fruits...
jewelry

Sean Erin McMurray enjoyed a dried persimmon while watching an episode of the “Shogun” streaming series about Miura Anjin, the first English navigator to reach Japan by ship in 1600.

An overripe persimmon
with the brand new Anjin
captivating once again

Boats bring autumn grapes from Chile and pears from Argentina. Rather than buying imported pears at an expensive supermarket, haikuists and their families can pick low-hanging fruits at local orchards. September is the peak season for grape and pear-picking in Yamanashi Prefecture and lasts until around mid-October. Kitajima explained that although the Japanese pear (nashi) is juicy and crisp, one of its hidden mysteries is “the uneven sweetness that a single pear contains, so that we cannot but feel the joker smile when wondering which to take.”

One in eight
the sweetest pear slice...
which to take?

Wieslaw Karlinski jumped over a fence in Namyslow, Poland.

to rediscover
the taste of a field pear
a walk with grandson

One fine fall day in Dublin, Ireland, beechnuts--the fruit of the beech tree--began to drop and Philip Davison tipped the brim of his hat as if to say, “top of the morning to you.”

By way of greeting
she holds aloft her pencil
before the beech tree

Grocery stores have developed a reputation as dating hotspots. On social network sites writing a message with the picture of a pear emoji can be used to convey online that you are single and interested in meeting someone. When pineapples hit supermarkets mid-October, some customers place the fruits upside-down in their shopping carts to suggest they are swingers looking for love. Joshi pondered a question.

pear tree
in most neighborhood homes
just married wife’s query

Metaphor is a potent literary technique. Long before social media emoji, fruits have been used suggestively in poetry. Shiki Masaoka (1867-1902) penned this repeating line to suggest different ages: Akaki ringo aoki ringo ya taku no ue

Red apples
greens apples
everything on the table

Green apples are usually ready to harvest in early autumn, while red or yellow apples are prevalent later in the season. On social media showing a green apple emoji can mean someone is engaged. A red apple can imply school days and education. Maurizio Brancaleoni was endeared by this late autumnal scene in Rome, Italy.

the wind shines
the little girl helps mom
get red apples

Kitajima knows who is most likely to find the edible nuts of the chestnut fruits growing in Japan’s depopulated villages. As a student in Kathmandu, Nepal, Tejendra Sherchan tasted sweet and juicy wild figs named for Sir William Roxburgh, the founder of Indian botany.

Prowling round
the chestnut trees...bears
hunting children

* * *

distant memory
of my childhood
the Roxburgh fig

When bushfires swept through Margaret Ponting’s farm property in Gippsland, Australia, she said the native bird life disappeared for a time, but the “plants slowly regenerated, and… when the fig tree produced fruit,” in springtime she celebrated life’s renewal. The breba crop is the fruit that started forming on the old wood shoots of the previous autumn.

they gorge
on ripened figs
king parrots return

Misa Makisako penned a frugal thought during a haiku class at the International University of Kagoshima. T.D. Ginting was of two minds on the value of freshness in Medan, North Sumatra.

The timing is good
to stop wasting our money
let’s rethink our lives

* * *

fresh bento there
half-price stickers here--
the (b)order of things

Luciana Moretto’s spartan menu helped her save enough money to buy Christmas presents for her loved one in Treviso, Italy. Ronnie Racimo picked up a prize in Kagawa University’s haiku contest. The contest judge Ian Willey suggested the expression on the final line “regardless of shape” gave the haiku depth and “speaks of acceptance… an important emotion in an increasingly polarized world.”

food for November
trolley full of spaghetti
and canned tomatoes

* * *

The taste of pasta--
Heart embraced by love and warmth
Regardless of shape

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

The next issue of the Asahi Haikuist Network appears Mar. 21. Readers are invited to compose haiku to celebrate the arrival of cherry blossoms. Send haiku 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).