trailing lantana you look at my lips
--Pippa Phillips (Cape Cod, Massachusetts)

* * *

White eggplant
shall I paint
mouth and eyes
--Murasaki Sagano (Tokyo)

* * *

honeysuckle
natural imperfection
I’ll never attain
--Nuri Rosegg (Oslo, Norway)

* * *

infinity beach anklet
always at war
with her skin
--Pegah Rahmati Nezhad (Tehran, Iran)

* * *

Deflating
a plastic dolphin
summer’s end
--Satoru Kanematsu (Nagoya)

* * *

hospital bed
the long road to recovery
moon by my side
--Elancharan Gunasekaran (Singapore)

* * *

we empty
our magazines
of bullets
--Roberta Beach Jacobson (Indianola, Iowa)

* * *

the frantic race of women
to look for water--
summer truce
--Mauro Battini (Pisa, Italy)

* * *

menopause…
after the fireworks
fireworks
--Monica Kakkar (South Riding, Virginia)

* * *

smoke fades
mothers weep
names etched in stone
--Mel Goldberg (Ajijic, Mexico)

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

old now
my garden rewilding
naturally
--Pitt Buerken (Munster, Germany)

A jungle grew in the haikuist’s backyard. Walt Whitman’s “Leaves of Grass,” penned in 1855, began with this quiet contemplation of nature:

I loafe and invite my soul,
I lean and loafe at my ease observing a spear of summer grass.

Inspired by the American poet’s words, and the idea of letting fields lie fallow, Luciana Moretto is nonetheless worried about this other trending word in poetry circles: rearmament.

one (fine) day
that subject will be tabooed...
wars end

In today’s column, haikuists sketch gardens that were allowed to reforest and fields that were left to lie fallow. Nicoletta Ignatti paused at an abandoned shelter made of stones for farm workers in Castellana Grotte, Italy. Philmore Place returned to a ghost town in the Minsk region of Belarus.

ruined trullo--
the goldfinch’s insistent song
on the flowering pine

* * *

abandoned village
are overgrown with weeds
the ancestors’ graves

David Cox in Odessa, Texas, and Lewis-James Mordue in Bath, England, respectively, sketched gray-colored haiku scenes.

dun sky--
a breath of moisture
over West Texas

* * *

the pale grey vase holds
just two pink camellias
window blows open

Urszula Marciniak conjures Canadian wartime doctor (1872-1918) John McCrae’s lines: In Flanders fields the poppies blow Between the crosses, row on row, That mark our place; and in the sky The larks, still bravely singing, fly

the hot summer
the poppies on the warfront
are withering

Reflecting on current politics in Lazarevac, Serbia, Dejan Ivanovic was disheartened that conflicts won’t end this summer. Hands on her hips in Palmer, Alaska, Bonnie J. Scherer kept busy in her garden when the Russian president visited her state in August. Marek Printer kept an eye on the thermometer in Kielce, Poland.

that summer
when I longed for retirement--
revolution

* * *

bird vetch in my garden
I refuse to concede
this invasion

* * *

Trump-Putin summit
a column of mercury
rises up

Writing from Glasgow, Scotland, Tony Williams asked whether “war will end if you only know what winning looks like, and not the win itself?”

winning a war…
molehills
pepper the field

Angelo B. Ancheta might have touched a pink blooming weed, the Mimosa pudica, on the grasslands in Taytay, Rizal, Philippines. John Richard Stephens encountered a straw man. At sundown in Tychy, Poland, Slawa Sibiga neatly folded layers of darkness into her haiku.

warming up...
the sensitive plant bows
leaves folded

* * *

forgotten scarecrows--
arms wide awaiting
an embrace

* * *

empty field
the crow gathers dusk
under its wings

Tejendra Sherchan suggested leaving agricultural cropland uncultivated in Kathmandu, Nepal, would allow grasses to grow and be cut for livestock feed. When shade trees regenerate, low labor cash crops such as curcuma, could take root. Those attractive trees, however, draw in monkeys, deer and porcupines, too.

keeping monkeys off
farmers replant barren lands
with turmeric

Acrid smoke disturbed Foteini Georgakopoulou in Athens, Greece. Tsanka Shishkova listened to nature’s way of returning nutrients to the ground in Sofia, Bulgaria.

waking up
once more from the smell
summer wildfires

* * *

wildfire
spreading by the wind
bell ringing

All the words in this haiku curated by Laurence Raphael Brothers were inspired by T.S. Elliot’s long poem “The Burial of the Dead,” published in “The Waste Land” in 1922.

broken images:
dead tree, dry stone, no relief--
a handful of dust

T.D. Ginting washed off in Medan, North Sumatra. Laila Brahmbhatt was prompted to conjure up different faces in day-dreamy New York. In Bangalore, India, Kavita Ratna caressed a cicatrice.

dry season; dust--
the rain washes it away
as an ab(so)lution

* * *

Lazy afternoon
a child etches initials
into dust

* * *

a healed scar
on olive skin...
la primavera

Gordana Vlasic kept close watch over a stubble field in Oroslavje, Croatia. Mario Massimo Zontini surveyed a fallow field in Parma, Italy.

burning ground
I hold the key to the house door
in my hand

* * *

at dusk
the last light paints with gold
the humble stubble

Giuliana Ravaglia penned these haiku on her own little plot of land in Bologna, Italy.

little lizard--
in a small corner
his whole world

* * *

an autumn leaf
I barely emerge--
from the fallow land

Marciniak is not sure what to do with a bequest in Lodz, Poland.

the end of summer
grandma would know what to do
in the garden

David Cox was intoxicated by a walk down memory lane in San Antonio, Ibiza. Carl Brennan eyes flickered during a recurring childhood dream in North Syracuse, New York.

old hippy trail
we drink in
all the colours

* * *

My young parents
vanish again at dawn...
my cat wants out

Stephen J. DeGuire rejoiced in Los Angeles, California.

aftermath
empty cities start
to re-green

C.X. Turner poured in Warwickshire, England. Patrick Sweeney stirred in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Aleksandra Rybczynska walked in Swiebodzin, Poland. Sanjana Zorinc wondered what magical adventures were unfolding in Croatia, Bjelovar.

tea round
the unspoken rule
I almost break

* * *

to know salt
in the cold black coffee
of sunflowers

* * *

walking through
fields of sunflowers
in his dreams

* * *

flowerbed in bloom--
a boy gazing at
the garden gnome

Georgakopoulou likely regrets not having taken her scooter out for a ride. Alexander Groth captured a good haiku moment because he refrained from spreading mothballs outdoors.

Autumn
homeless passes by
cocooned motorcycle

* * *

between two pines
the moon
cocooned

The full moon of Sept. 7 will be as round as a personal name seal (hanko), and according to Carole Daoust, may very well draw a squiggly line across Lac des Battures on Nuns’ Island, Quebec.

full moon
its signature on the lake
ripples

Morgan Ophir heard a sound on his verandah in Sydney, Australia.

rare visitor
porch light catches
a fox’s tail

Kathy Watts ceded her garden to its original owners in Half Moon Bay, California.

letting the white moth
larvae eat all my roses
they were here first

Morgan Ophir knows who trespassed in Sydney, Australia.

deer footprints--
all of my spring
has been eaten

No sooner had Shannon Wallace manicured a perfectly green moss ball in Mississauga, Ontario, well you can likely divine the end of her haiku moment.

pristine kokedama
eaten by
squirrels

“How frequently it comes and makes us feel hotter all the more,” complained Yutaka Kitajima in drought-stricken Joetsu, Niigata Prefecture. Tracy Davidson swore in annoyance.

“Save drinking water...”
an old-fashioned truck blares
rainy season lost

* * *

seemingly neverending
the bloody heat
of battle

Nitu Yumnam measured the increasing costs of war in Ajman, United Arab Emirates. A total eclipse of the blood moon takes place the day after tomorrow, Sept. 7.

blood moon--
amid ruins
a doorframe with height marks

Germina Melius called for calm during this hottest month of the year when hurricanes often strike Castries, Saint Lucia.

amidst the angry crowd
a humble man
Jesus, my teacher

M.R. Pelletier saddled up to the bar to listen to a few stories in Topeka, Kansas.

high school champ
wrestles only ghosts now
at the local bar

Melissa Dennison worries the seasons are getting ahead of themselves in Bradford, England. Florian Munteanu feels as though he could give up the ghost in Bucharest, Romania.

midsummer
and the berries ripen...
ghosts of autumn

* * *

whether
war’s ghost
would bring peace

“Soon, we’ll all be eating grasses and bugs out in the fields,” shouted Junko Saeki in Tokyo. The haikuist is feeling irate about what little the yen can buy at current exchange rates.

Daddy
keeps all the money abroad
and didn’t pay the taxes

Martina Matijevic is considering the word “adoption” in Vidovci, Croatia.

broken fence
an orphan lamb
strolls into the house

Eugeniusz Zacharski’s sailboat headed into the wind as he gathered speed for a new tack on the Baltic Sea offshore Darlowo, Poland.

ongoing summer
the weathercock chases away
the leftover mist

Marshall Hryciuk was surprised by a melee on a tourist bus in Toronto, Ontario.

mist blowing
on the bus’ upper deck
a rugby scrum

Peggy Pilkey watched thick autumn fog roll in from the North Atlantic Ocean and eerily descend upon Dartmouth, Nova Scotia.

ships’ funnels in fog--
moans of long-held organ keys--
announce their ghostly presence

Chen-ou Liu watched fog settle over Lake Ontario. Dennison shared her viewpoint across the pond.

layers of autumn fog...
trying to live this midlife
without answers

* * *

dew drop
on the spider’s web
reflects an upside-down world

Ramona Linke bit her tongue watching a huge cloud bank form along the leading edge of thunderstorm front in Beesenstedt, Germany. For a moment in Delhi, India, Mona Bedi wasn’t sure of which way to turn.

roll cloud
the birds
fall silent

* * *

ocean mist--
out of nowhere
a gull’s cry

Zelyko Funda and Mario Massimo Zontini decried, respectively, forever plastic pollution in Varazdin, Croatia, and unbearable temperatures in Parma, Italy.

open ocean
on top of a wave
a Barbie

* * *

ah, the heat--
the ink of my haiku
instantly dry

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

Letting fields lie fallow at http://www.asahi.com/ajw/special/haiku/. The next issue of the Asahi Haikuist Network appears Sept. 19. Readers are invited to send haiku about xenophobia 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).