Their shadows--carp streamers gulping Japan’s air
--Satoru Kanematsu (Nagoya)

* * *

magic
dancing crinolines
the smell of mimosa
--Zdenka Mlinar (Zagreb, Croatia)

* * *

the spring wind,
blowing my nose too hard
acacia blooms
--Anthony Q. Rabang (Santa Catalina, Philippines)

* * *

scent of smoke
through open window
sneezing fit
--Stephen J. DeGuire (Los Angeles, California)

* * *

rubbing udders
with a cowslip...
keeping the faeries away
--Melissa Dennison (Bradford, England)

* * *

last working day
kids wave
from the school bus
--Ankit Raj Ojha (Chapra, India)

* * *

little women--
with mom’s heels
in front of the mirror
--Giuliana Ravaglia (Bologna, Italy)

* * *

talking doll--
the word mom
a broken record
--Nicoletta Ignatti (Castellana Grotte, Italy)

* * *

Even if out of tune
humming “The Sound of Music”
plum red buds
--Murasaki Sagano (Tokyo)

* * *

Fingers of the sun--
the magic of life in
cherry blossoms
--Brigita Lukina (Zagreb, Croatia)

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

gleaming golden
tea cup cherry blossoms
kintsugi
--Rosemarie Schuldes (Mattsee, Austria)

The haikuist sipped from a bone china cup that had been strikingly mended with lacquer dusted with powdered gold.

For this week’s column, haikuists arose early, read, traveled, photographed and composed haiku related to the Golden Week holidays. Gareth Nurden stretched his arms in Newport, Wales.

welsh valley breeze
daffodils spring
in and out of sunrise

Perhaps numbed by the early glow of sunlight in London, England, Anne-Marie McHarg got busy trimming the grass.

Enigma
of cherry trees--
A world awakens

* * *

Sunrise--
Lawn mower in motion
first job of the day

David Cox found hope in the words of the poet Du Fu (712-770) penned during a time of political upheaval in Chang’an, China: The country is ruined: yet mountains and rivers remain. It’s spring in the walled town, the grass growing wild.

changing seasons…
but the ice-cream still sweet
the sun still warm

Zdenka Mlinar opened the white and pink covers of a haiku book penned in Matsuyama, Ehime, by Yoshino Yoshiko in 1992.

“Sakura”
her haiku book
spring delight

Cox admitted that although he’s “often unlucky in love, a book makes a great partner!” Carl Brennan plans to sleep-in and snuggle up with his cat.

supine with my lover…
tenderly I hold on
to the book’s spine

* * *

Daybreak. He shows off
stretching himself awake
the cover-boy

McHarg played an ephemeral game.

Hit and a miss
among the falling cherry blossoms
cats at play

Richard L. Matta enjoyed two different versions of the game of catch in San Diego, California.

an orb spider
silk wraps her catch
cherry blossoms

* * *

cherry blossoms
a turtle practices
catch and release

At 87, Junko Saeki explained, “I’m doing nothing in Tokyo, but plan to watch the scenery as if I were traveling.”

watching midnight TV
bundled up and mesmerized
views from running trains, hours on end

In Sydney, Australia, Marilyn Humbert got caught in the commuter rush.

peak hour train
every passenger wears
a coloured mask

Glorija Lukina and Brigita Lukina, respectively, donned masks in Zagreb, Croatia.

masked people
escape evil spirits and
the noise of the bell

* * *

Isn’t spring coming?
Masquerades drive away
the cold evil spirits

Perplexed in St. Augustine, Florida, Michael Henry Lee plans to exhale by May 5.

children’s day
a moment of reason
in a world gone mad

Luciana Moretto noted how life goes round and round.

Spring true story
back to the jungle...
full circle

Nicoletta Ignatti opened up a couriered delivery box of carp streamers that she plans to hang in Castellana Grotte, Italy. From her vantage at Barnard Castle, England, Joanna Ashwell took stock of black, pink, blue, green and purple fish flowing in the spring breeze.

amazon package--
a festoon
of multicolored carp

* * *

carp kites
success rippling
through familial silk

Corine Timmer likely played car games to pass the time, such as “I spy with my little eye” on the way to a beach near Faro, Portugal.

Children’s Day
a car full of kids
to the seaside

Timmer’s kids pulled on tight-fitting stretch trousers that resembled denim jeans and skirts with self-embroidered leafy prints.

Greenery Day
DIY vines climbing
her jeggings

* * *

Greenery Day
embroidered vines
conquer her skirt

It was surprisingly cold in The Hague, Netherlands, where Maya Daneva’s cheeks turned blushing pink.

the colors of the tulips
just like the skirts
of these little girls

* * *

frozen cherry blossom
how we know
climate changes

Justice Joseph Prah listened to his favorite African storyteller.

children’s day
deeper and deeper
father’s talk reaches night’s core

Jerome Berglund listened keenly to an improvisation mixing in the complex harmony and rhythms of a small band playing jazz in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Sanjana Zorinc banged on a drum.

gently playing
bebop overheard:
what instrument?

* * *

percussion echoes
scattered afar the evil spirits
through my town

The clicking sound of a camera triggered Murasaki Sagano to flashback to the year 1976.

Camera shutter--
kimono photographs
father’s Rolleiflex

Francoise Maurice visited a zoo in France. Sanae Kagaya recalled a visit to Ueno Zoo in Tokyo. Slawa Sibiga visited an art gallery in Poland.

year of the snake
visitors attracted
by an empty aquarium

* * *

great weight--
becoming my muffler
giant snake

* * *

an exhibition
among lines and splashes
Picasso’s snake

Slobodan Pupovac warily entertained family at his home in Croatia. Surprised to be rebuffed while offering sweets at a home in Joetsu, Niigata Prefecture, Yutaka Kitajima retorted: “Who could imagine that even a chocolate bar feels a little tough for the aged?”

the Year of the Snake
mother-in-law
comes to visit

* * *

Warm out of season...
softened chocolate bars
for the seniors

Maurice cooled her heels in the doctor’s office. Stoianka Boianova recalled experiences at a maternity ward in Sofia, Bulgaria. Minko Tanev might sing a lullaby on May 11, Mother’s Day.

waiting room…
I count the cherry blossoms
on the wallpaper

* * *

flasks and vials
tingle with memories
the children’s hospital

* * *

angel breath--
the unborn child
grows in sleep

J.J. Prah acknowledged the cycle of pain and rebirth in Accra, Ghana.

blooming springtime...
a charred forest
covers its scars

Margaret Ponting’s parents faithfully record the growth of their grandchildren with pencil marks on a brick wall in Victoria, Australia.

brick walls
growth marks
of grandchildren

Natalia Kuznetsova penned this flowing line in Moscow, Russia: childhood--the fast-flowing stream never to step in again

Marshall Hryciuk overheard this line of conversation in Toronto, Ontario: someone asks her age another answers “three kids old”

Germina Melius penned this line, and the next haiku, in Castries, Saint Lucia: a sonogram a baby a eulogy

at an orphanage
children are singing
moving my unborn child

Looking out from “the window in a warm room of the house” in Ivanic-Grad, Croatia, D.V. Rozic welcomed a new neighbor and “a world of surprises… in the small things of life.”

his pregnant wife…
the cherry’s buds
getting plump

Brigita Lukina looked after a baby in Zagreb, Croatia.

my job--
someone else’s child is sleeping
in my lap

Chen-ou Liu inhaled a breath of fresh air in Ajax, Ontario.

faint birdsong
the nurse opens the window
to let the spring in

In Colombo, Sri Lanka, Ashoka Weerakkody rejoiced in full sunlight.

blossoms of spring
divine without shadows--
Lahaina noon

In Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Patrick Sweeney dried his washing on this line: daydreamy, marrying socks behind a glass block window

Capota Daniela Lacramioara’s pet loves the sound of birdsong in Galați, Romania.

spring in the city--
at the window my cat
becomes a melomaniac

Kuznetsova calibrated this year’s zodiac sign.

omen for the year...
a snake in the pet store
staring knowingly

Ivan Georgiev furtively peered over his shoulder while shopping, then he shook his head while stroking the names off a list.

a toy store
this year all the snakes
are smiling

* * *

falling cherry blossoms
an even shorter list of countries
without armed forces

Zoe Mahfouz seems to suggest that the outcome of the recent federal elections in Canada proved it is not a country for old corn.

Drop trailer corn maze
Salt and oil, blue jay steers in
Kernel combustion

Urszula Marciniak plans to recite this poem aloud on May 3 in Lodz, Poland. In nearby Kielce, Marek Printer plans to salute the worn marching boots and scarred faces of veterans.

Constitution Day
in Japan and Poland
on the same day

* * *

Constitution Day
clatter of the parade
trembles the pool

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The next issues of the Asahi Haikuist Network appear on May 16 and 30. Readers are invited to send haiku about what is happening in their neighbor’s garden, or a nearby park, 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).