Stormlight in the wanderer’s heart a dream of love
--Tsanka Shishkova (Sofia, Bulgaria)

* * *

hitching a ride
blossom petals
on the breeze
--Melissa Dennison (Bradford, U.K.)

* * *

the white sky expanding
in every direction around
the starling that fell behind
--Patrick Sweeney (Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania)

* * *

barking dogs
shifting our conflicts
from home to neighbours
--Hifsa Ashraf (Rawalpindi, Pakistan)

* * *

waxing wind…
garden to garden
night-blooming jasmine
--Monica Kakkar (Delhi, India)

* * *

the old beggar
asleep on the carpet...
of cherry petals
--Urszula Marciniak (Lodz, Poland)

* * *

stroking grey stubble
he shrugs at his hand
and reshuffles the cards
--Mark Valentine (Yorkshire, England)

* * *

blossoms in the park--
it’s time for budding mangoes
in my native place
--Kanchan Chatterjee (Jamshedpur, India)

* * *

Tokyo blizzard
blinding and blocking the way
cherry blossoms wait
--Michael Feil (Berwyn, Pennsylvania)

* * *

different spring
cherry petals circling
the ruined city
--Stoianka Boianova (Sofia, Bulgaria)

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

Cherry Orchard
by Anton Chekhov...
the good old days
--Luciana Moretto (Treviso, Italy)

The haikuist took her time reminiscing about a theatrical piece set in Saint Petersburg, Russia, during the pre-dawn hours when cherry trees bloomed in the frost of a May morning in 1903. Mel Goldberg remarked on a surprising cold spell he recently experienced in Ajijic, Mexico. Alan Maley evoked a feeling of harmony with a haiku composed about a gentle slope nestled in a wooded area near Canterbury, England.

chilly morning
the blush on your cheeks
cherry blossoms

* * *

on the cheek of woods
this pink blush of wild cherry
bursting into bloom…

In 1685, at age 43, Matsuo Basho composed this line when he returned to his old hermitage and saw plum blossoms welcoming him back from an extended journey: tabigarasu furusu-wa mume-ni-narinikeri

a wandering crow
an old nest has turned into
plum blossoms

Dennison returned home from wandering the woods. Rosemarie Schuldes lay her head down peacefully in Mattsee, Austria.

peeling layers
of clothes
cherry blossom unfolds

* * *

cherry tree in buds
the warmth of my
cherry pit-filled pillow

Mateusz returned from a visit to a music museum in Wejherowo, Poland.

Fragrant apple tree
the woman in labor is
waiting for the fruit

Having kept his callers waiting for almost a week in Joetsu, Niigata Prefecture, Yutaka Kitajima offered them profuse apologies as he slid open a window atop the wooden doors of a farmer’s shed.

A sigh of relief...
the transom opened at last
for the barn swallows

From atop a ladder in his cottage, Joshua St. Claire peered into a dark, dusty room. Masumi Orihara brightened every nook and cranny in her abode.

pulling the light cord
in the attic
sugar maple blossoms

* * *

in every little
drab corner--
narcissus

Maley grieved for the man next door who died in his bath.

ivy on the roof
of my dead neighbour’s old house--
birds fly in and out

Mona Bedi burned an aromatic incense in Delhi, India. Francoise Maurice breathed deeply in Draguignan, France. An old chair reeks with fond memories for Slobodan Pupovac in Zagreb, Croatia.

scent of basil
permeates the old house
pink moon

* * *

warding off evil spirits
all the windows of the house
wide open

* * *

a chair by the window
grandfather’s later years
with pipe smoke

In one deep breath, Aaron Ozment exhaled this haiku at a glass-pipe smoking lounge that he found to be a swell place to spend an afternoon in Kagoshima.

In a shisha bar
Garlic rusk is on the house
My new favorite place

After a long winter of isolation in Marmora, Ontario, John Hamley was feeling a little on edge while walking outdoors in unfamiliar surroundings--until he realized that even a lonely outhouse can be a godsend.

Nature’s call
on a withered field
lonely traveler

David Cox thought nobody was looking when he clandestinely entered Liechtenstein.

Rhine flows
two goats watch me
cross the border

Anna Lenaker returned from a visit to sustainable rice paddy terraces said to be tended by a thousand hermits (Sennin no Tanada), in the picturesque mountain village of Shiiba in Miyazaki Prefecture.

Winding road follows
flooded fields and forested
mountain up to clouds

Agreeing that “all’s right with the world,” Murasaki Sagano relished a monologue by Robert Browning (1812-1889).

This light sweet
spring broccoli
“Pippa’s Song”

Lilia Racheva believes that every flower in her magical garden in Rousse, Bulgaria, speaks to her in a different language.

traces in the garden,
peonies jolted
by the wind

Laila Brahmbhatt seemed hungry for signs of nature when she composed this haiku in the Big Apple.

Birdsong on spotify
as New Yorkers queue for lunch,
the crescent moon appears

Visiting an art gallery of woodblock prints in Greenville, South Carolina, John S. Gilbertson looked right into the eyes of a ghost.

Yoshitoshi
saw them clearly
others looked away

Penned in Mattsee, Austria, Rosemarie Schuldes’ haiku will make you laugh so loud you might show your tonsils.

neighbour’s smile
as gappy as
the garden fence

While trekking in Andorra la Vella, Principality of Andorra, Cox slipped down an unstable steep hillside covered in rock fragments and talus deposits. He had little time to parse his lines, but managed to compose this haiku by the time he got to the bottom.

across the scree…
my words again
lose their footing

Maley wondered aloud.

it’s spring blossom time,
blackthorn hedges sprayed with froth:
not cherry bloom? Who cares?

Passing a long spring day pruning and pondering her lifestyle in Hamamatsu, Shizuoka Prefecture, Yu Onoe came to the conclusion that she “hopes something fun will happen soon.”

bonsai cherry buds
a nap to mull over life
tiny studio

Sagano loved wandering in Tokyo, but was relieved to return home, hinting that someday soon she will need to use a walking cane.

Wisteria splints
I need them too
precarious life

Robin Rich mended worn clothes as soon as he returned home to Brighton, U.K.

buttons in a basket
mixed plastic and brass
cherrywood box

Satoru Kanematsu received the posthumous haiku collection of a former college classmate, whose son knew that he would be waiting to read it in order to bid a final farewell.

Arriving
dear friend’s last haiku
chilly spring

Whenever he travels away from his home in Rehovot, Israel, Mike Fainzilber updates his immunization records.

yuzu scented
vaccination card
better safe than sorry

Having departed Bologna, Italy, Giuliana Ravaglia is well on her way.

little by little
the grass becomes a path--
a long journey

Eugeniusz Zacharski is not sure when he will return to Radom, Poland.

spring light
the road
is endless

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The next issues of the Asahi Haikuist Network appear on June 6 and 20. Readers are invited to send haiku about lying down on the grass or a tatami mat, 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).