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today the sun on the horizon never seems to set --Angela Giordano (Avigliano, Italy)
the road comes to a ragged end… tasman sea --Sandra Simpson (Tauranga, New Zealand)
winter equinox-- in the small village everything is ready for Inti Raymi --Julia Guzman (Cordoba, Argentina)
boomerang flight the sun remains in the sky --Slobodan Pupovac (Zagreb, Croatia)
In a Volkswagen bus covered Australia’s edge I have seen the world --John S. Gilbertson (Greenville, South Carolina)
at the front window waiting for delivery new wheelchair for dad --Nani Mariani (Melbourne, Australia)
Greenwashing rinsing Sahara sand off the hybrid car --Lee Nash (Poitou-Charentes, France)
sand dune a reminder to keep moving --Roberta Beach Jacobson (Indianola, Iowa)
july full moon the smell of coconut oil on your tan lines --Francoise Maurice (Draguignan, France)
saharan romance the perpetual blossom of a desert rose --Judith Gorgone (Newton, Massachusetts)
------------------------------ FROM THE NOTEBOOK ------------------------------
midnight a world half asleep --Keith Evetts (Thames Ditton, England)
The haikuist lives about an hour away from the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, London, where the world is split in half from east to west by the mean solar time that is counted from midnight. Lorraine Carey watched glowing hemispheres float past castaway islands in the coastal waters off Kerry, Ireland.
compass jellyfish contemplating wind direction
In today’s column, we’ll explore seasonal references to the Earth’s southern hemisphere. Zdenka Mlinar smiled and split horizontally into two equal halves. Deborah A. Bennett halved fruit.
axis on her lips the smell of watermelon
after rain coolness with a paring knife i slice the green apple
Giordano was eager to begin a southbound journey away from Avigliano, Italy.
suitcases ready for the first vacation-- summer solstice
Mauro Battini overheard a closed conversation in Santa Croce sull’Arno, Italy.
traveling ants-- two women talk closely another language
Satoru Kanematsu’s 7-year-old grandchild departed alone from Yokohama on a southbound Nozomi Shinkansen (a name that means hope). The boy was old enough in comparison to similar solo adventures chronicled in the children’s picture book “Hajimete no Otsukai” and television show with the same name, but grandpa nonetheless rode a roller coaster of emotions until he hugged the boy on the train platform near his home in Nagoya.
Hope express: grandson’s first journey by himself
Teiichi Suzuki found himself in Osaka.
Lone traveler I am a wandering cloud that cloud is me
J.D. Nelson’s eyes followed a white center line that led to the day moon.
a brown rabbit hops in the middle of the street-- moon before sunset
Mel Goldberg followed the way of haiku from San Nicholas de Ibarra, Mexico.
morning in my garden the silver path of a snail
Samo Kreutz looked to the east and then to the west before deciding which way to go.
crossroads... a bumblebee leads me into my inner self
The northbound migration of swallows to Greece from Africa at the end of winter inspired Aristotle (384-322 BC) to remark: one swallow does not make spring. The English epigrammatist John Heywood (1496-1578) changed the season word to summer to imply the warmer half of the year: One swallow does not make a summer.
This haiku by Francoise Maurice optimistically suggested that one cicada can make peace.
first cicada in my thoughts a world of peace
Evetts’s pet African Grey Dolly squawked after he lubricated a rusty line: after the oil silence.
a long time after I oiled the door hinges my parrot still squeaks
Mike Fainzilber couldn’t move in the oppressive heat of Rehovot, Israel.
even flies cannot fly August wind
Goldberg watched a spider that had trapped a fly in its web near the ancient Egyptian display in a museum, saying he “was impressed by the similarity.”
Egyptian mummy display a spider wraps a fly
Jerome Berglund suggested global warming has everyone guessing about migration.
many non-migrators won’t see the spring robin gambles
Helga Stania welcomed birds from afar flying northbound.
lapwings-- the movement of long lenses
Fainzilber observed the cycle of life.
cranes in flight an endless quest for summer
Simona Brinzaru has heard the roaring noise of a tidal flood rushing into the mouth of the Amazon river, but she’s never heard the sound a snowstorm makes in her native Bucharest, Romania.
silent pororoca the snow comes back to the mountain
John Hamley lamented missing a chance to meet the indigenous wanderer Karapiru (prior to his July 16, 2021, death) whose story was documented by filmmakers in the Amazon. His name means hawk in the Awa language.
Far away for a runny nose I didn’t see the hawk
Sandra Simpson shivered at the sounds of new life.
icy night-- the echoing bellows of birthing ewes
Guzman suddenly shuddered with cold in the southern hemisphere. Worried for those who dressed in required recruitment suits, Aki Yoshida shivered through a cold morning in Sapporo, Hokkaido.
winter equinox-- the frozen smile of an abandoned puppet
job-hunting students in sheer stockings and black pumps-- sudden spring blizzard
Curt Linderman prayed for peace.
folding one thousand uniforms into monks robes never again war
Ashoka Weerakkody enjoyed Asian filmdom in Colombo, Sri Lanka.
Bollywood movie heroine’s saree dances raga wrapped around
Mona Bedi invoked traditional Southeast Asian memories of flatbread and a long scarf. Arvinder Kaur misses a colorfully embroidered shawl once peacefully worn by a bride.
rolling chapatis mom’s old dupatta flies away from the clothesline
war news her bridal phulkari back in the closet
Ken Sawitri knows what the neighbors are preparing for dinner in Blora, Indonesia. Daipayan Nair warms to his mother’s cooking and writing in Silchar, India.
hometown vein from an open kitchen the scent of teak leaf rice
winter morning-- coconut oil scoops melting on ma’s stove
Peter Leroe-Munoz got used to the taste of Hawaiian scrambled eggs.
coconut oil-- missing Maui with my eggs
Christina Chin sent worrisome news from Kuching, Sarawak, Borneo.
mother on board... the boat capsized at the crocodile crossing
Nash and Shishkova, respectively, paused for thought.
zen garden petals impaled on cacti
a wild rose in my small garden how to tame it
Kanematsu wrote about the rewilding of gardens at deserted homes in his neighborhood. Tsanka Shishkova admired bright, loose-fitting cotton pullovers made in West Africa.
Broken fence tangled with wild roses in full bloom
bright colors of the blooming desert dashiki
Eleonore Nickolay said her traveling friends sent “lovely photos, but one of them made me think of the excessive killing of African wildlife.”
Namibia his smile on the selfie with a stuffed lion
Recent droughts in Southern Africa have made things tough for Lysa Collins’s beloved white rhinoceros.
dusk-- an old rhino stumbles to the arid water hole
Pravat Kumar Padhy may have fallen into a deep dream while resting under a tree.
Africa land-- the deep-rooted human tree
Mona Iordan watched a documentary on the “amazing people” of Africa who “perform their traditional dance just to entertain.”
dancing with a Maasai camera clicks accompany another jump
Maurice clicked her camera in rhythm with traditional Australian Aboriginal musical instruments called clapsticks.
on Uluru the song of the aborigines the camera’s clicks
Kreutz visited Ljubljana Zoo in Slovenia. Gilbertson encountered a red flyer and her joey. On a hot day in Tokyo, Frederick Kesner recalled the red landscape of the Australian Outback. Robin Rich hopped by an immigration and customs inspector.
wildlife park... in a kangaroo’s pouch my lullaby
The kangaroo hops happily around human’s world
dusty ochred plains sun on cloudless skies pulsate critters scurry past
emptying pockets before boarding the airplane kangaroo customs
Mariani was feeling blue in Melbourne, Australia.
ocean... blue calms the heart low flying seagull
Barbara A. Taylor spotted a nocturnal bird hiding inside a backyard tree on Mountain Top, New South Wales. Later, she may have been distracted by the sound of breaking glass from her china cabinet inside the house.
in the speckled trunk a tawny frogmouth’s camouflaged stare
tinkling glass a python slithers between antique crystal
Natalia Kuznetsova reflected on a mirror image in Moscow, Russia.
my cat always sees a tiger in the mirror... beastly vanity
Stoianka Boianova follows the path of haiku writers.
dark clouds anxious ants rush along the path
Timely and timeless haiku. The next issues of the Asahi Haikuist Network appear on Sept. 2, 16 and 30. Readers are invited to send haiku about ripening grain, rippling wheat or reaping rice, 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).
ASAHI HAIKUIST NETWORK/ David McMurray
ASAHI HAIKUIST NETWORK/ David McMurray
ASAHI HAIKUIST NETWORK/ David McMurray
ASAHI HAIKUIST NETWORK/ David McMurray
ASAHI HAIKUIST NETWORK/ David McMurray
ASAHI HAIKUIST NETWORK/ David McMurray
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