weeping willow…a drop of make-up left dripping
--Giuliana Ravaglia (Bologna, Italy)

* * *

foreign syllables
a stream babbling
over smooth stones
--Padraig O’Morain (Dublin, Ireland)

* * *

Seven hundred years--
The color of the gingko
says when to plant rice
--Anna Lenaker (Shiiba, Miyazaki)

* * *

today, a soft wind
brings with it a wet mantle
to open acorns
--Philip Davison (Dublin, Ireland)

* * *

drizzle of morning--
how generous this sky of
twenty twenty-five
--Gillena Cox (St. James, Trinidad)

* * *

puddles
after a downpour
child’s bare feet
--Earl Livings (Melbourne, Australia)

* * *

The rainy season begins
--and so, I add ice
to my evening whisky
--Tim Chamberlain (Tokyo)

* * *

scrubbing to and fro,
a cat’s paw in the water
washes the river
--John Richard Stephens (Maui, Hawaii)

* * *

Rose painting
brush-washing water
turns scarlet
--Satoru Kanematsu (Nagoya)

* * *

evil spirit
possessed by the dark
pink elephant
--John Hawkhead (Bradford on Avon, England)

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

Meeting on the bridge
The wind wiped the tears
of the lonely one
--Zoran Antonijevic (Mladenovac, Serbia)

The haikuist suggested an unequal love, an imbalance of power between partners took place on a bridge over a river of tears that flows through his small town. Tsanka Shishkova trimmed her garden gate in Sofia, Bulgaria. In Bonn, Germany, Deborah Karl-Brandt came to realize that smoke tends to settle more readily and lingers longer on rainy days.

azalea hedge
my daughter’s fallen in love
with the neighbour’s son

* * *

the scent of incense
drifts through the rooms
his new wife

In today’s column, haikuists share stories about early summer weather scenarios. June has traditionally been the time for composing rainy season related poetry such as this moment enjoyed by Kobayashi Issa (1763-1828): nyubai ya kani kake-aruku ozashiki

rainy season--
a crab strolls into
the sitting room

Daniela Misso composed a haiku while recovering from bronchitis in San Gemini, Italy. Her mindfulness of an afternoon’s soft sprinkle on snails gently bending hydrangea leaves rejuvenated her soul.

a tiny snail
stuck to the window pane…
convalescence

On a rainy day in London, England, Zoe Mahfouz was careful not to come in contact with a parasitic invertebrate.

Earthworm body stretch
Metamorphose, rubber band
Hairworm flowering

Germina Melius needed a pick-me-up idea to get through a dark day in Castries, Saint Lucia. Natsuki Arimura said “when I am feeling down on a rainy day, hearing the sound of frogs croaking outside seems to soothe my soul.”

sunday
dark clouds pouring rain
my enthusiasm dies

* * *

In rainy season
people don’t want to go out
frogs call from outdoors

Sloshing down a sidewalk in Bucharest, Romania, Florian Munteanu shook his head in disbelief.

rainy day...
a waterproof shoe
full of water

Junko Saeki’s family abhor the month of June in modern-day Tokyo when humid, hot temperatures combined with sun exposure exacerbate their dry skin conditions. Murasaki Sagano washed dishes in Tokyo.

the skin on my hands
peels off in June…
so does my brother’s

* * *

Soap bubbles
on the edge of plates
sink rainbows

Viviane Dunn composed this haiku on the path leading to Mangiennes, Bois de Merle, and Damvillers-By-Verdun, France. Her poem captures the feel of the place today, and resonates something from what soldiers might have experienced during the Battle of Verdun in World War I.

This silent forest,
Trenches long since abandoned,
Boot prints in the mud

Los Angeles has regularly been soaked by atmospheric storms--rivers in the sky--for days on end before the rains barrel toward coastlines. In the aftermath, Stephen J. DeGuire evoked a pure presence of mind when he described the joy of blossom-viewing.

blue tarps on
patches of green…
petals rain

Nuri Rosegg painted a haiku with pastel shades in Oslo, Norway. Marek Printer misses the blossoms and sunshine that brightened Kielce, Poland, just a few weeks ago.

cherry tree
behind the rainy window
a blur of pink

* * *

spring rain
I choose an umbrella
with cherry blossoms

A storm blew in to Maya Daneva’s port of call in The Hague, Netherlands.

rough waves
shake the marina…
a fisherman’s a cigarette

Heavy wind and rainfalls can send trees, mud and debris sliding down hillsides, mucking up roads and rolling into homes and other structures. Richard L. Matta’s umbrella flew skyward in San Diego, California.

flying umbrella
we laugh to tears
in the rain

Here’s a haiku by Terri Thorfinnson, member of the Greater Delta Haiku Society in West Sacramento, California.

out of the rain
she can no longer
hide her tears

Atmospheric rivers usually flow during the winters on the west coast of America, but this year heavy rainfalls and severe storms flooded the east coast until May. Following which, the hurricane season began in earnest. Laila B penned her respects for the tears watering the flowers on Hart Island, New York City’s public cemetery.

In mourning clothes,
morning flowers,
in the afternoon

Junko Saeki called upon her experience of studying with Americans in New York, to compose what she believes is the Japanese “penchant to do anything regardless of the costs, such as the Tokyo Games and Osaka Expo.” A student of haiku at the International University of Kagoshima, Shunsuke Kitagawa, seems to concur.

my people,
intense and unpredictable
May hurricanes

* * *

You taught me feelings
More than Osaka Expo
You are all of me

Peggy Pilkey penned this haiku in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia. Kanematsu couldn’t stop tearing up.

peonies bow low
in tearful supplication
unrelenting rain!

* * *

The pope gone
peonies droop, and
pigeons mourn

This haiku was composed in Durham, Ontario, by Lisa C. Reynolds, member of the League of Canadian Poets and The Writers’ Union of Canada.

tear after tear
she curses the rain--
morning downpour

Alan Maley stared from the other side of a windowpane in Canterbury, England.

the widow woman
cleaning windows in the rain,
spreading out her tears

Margaret Ponting’s neighbor rejoiced in Labertouche, Australia.

tears stain
her lined face
breaking the drought

Holidaying in Spilt, Croatia, Chamberlain observed the calm, Buddha-like patience of the stray cats who lived by the open-air tables of the restaurants at the square in the old town area. David Cox got out of the rain at a cafe in Chisinau, Moldova.

Sweet scent of fried fish
--a cat’s closed-eyes smile,
beside our table

* * *

cat cafe
ginger tom falls in love
with my soggy sweater

Bonnie J. Scherer greeted pink rain in Palmer, Alaska.

early spring
the pink hue
of rain

In Murasaki Sagano’s neighborhood in Tokyo, heavy cast iron sewer covers hold down sudden rainfall surges.

Here and there…
manhole covers with sakura patterns
I tread lightly

Keith Evetts dreamed of snagging something in Thames Ditton, England.

the town canal
murky enough for a boy
to hope for a fish

Mona Bedi didn’t need to push the baby’s carriage in Delhi, India: filling her pram with blossoms sakura breeze

Archie G. Carlos played ball in St. Louis Park, Minnesota. The sight of blossoms made him recall the moment before the incredible miracle of birth.

fly ball
grandson catches a few
cherry petals

* * *

new blossoms
the time
her water broke

Dorota Kasparewicz was hugged tightly in Szczecin, Poland. Amir Kapetanovic got an early Father’s Day hug in Zagreb, Croatia.

warm rain
in our embrace
tears

* * *

half asleep as
my daughter tucks me in
on her tiptoes

David Cox visited in Sandymount, Dublin, Ireland, to mark the anniversary of the June 13, 1865, birth of the influential poet William Butler Yeats.

drifting in wet sands
their shadows moving--
alone, unstitched

Wet by a spring drizzle, Masumi Orihara nonetheless took her time to pray solemnly at a temple in Atsugi, Kanagawa Prefecture. Mario Massimo Zontini enjoyed a measured moment in Parma, Italy.

tear-filled
dent in a rock at the temple…
Japanese apricot

* * *

the wind of spring:
camellias blooming
camellias falling

Rosemarie Schuldes reflected in Mattsee, Austria.

tears in the rain
a goldfish circles around
the watery moon

Maley measured time.

the slow drip of days
leaks across the calendar
leaving grey tearmarks…

Francoise Maurice pleaded for more time in Draguignan, France.

Constitution Day
in late, in late, I’ll be in late
if the rain won’t stop

Govind Joshi composed this haiku in Dehradun, India.

homecoming
sound of the rooftop
in the rain

Marek Printer turned off his television set in Kielce, Poland, and described a moment of nothingness.

the series Shogun
has ended--
the sound of rain

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The next issue of the Asahi Haikuist Network will appear June 20. You are invited to send a haiku about a June wedding, by 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).