May 19, 2017 at 08:00 JST
Caterpillar crawling on the thin twig to its favorite food
--Slobodan Pupovac (Zagreb, Croatia)
* * *
Bright morning sunlight
billowing bedroom curtain
colored young tea leaves
--Yuta Kawamura (Taipei, Taiwan)
* * *
Daybreak--light
shines from the top of
terraced rice fields
--Teiichi Suzuki (Osaka)
* * *
In closet darkness
a voice counts numbers
accelerating heartbeats
--Haruka Akaishi (Sapporo, Hokkaido)
* * *
green market
the scent of chili peppers
on my fingers
--Zoran Doderovic (Novi Sad, Serbia)
* * *
old man in the sun--
the green tomatoes
facing south
--Margherita Petriccione (Scauri, Italy)
* * *
picking riverside fiddleheads
for the senior meal site
with an old friend
--Judith Hishikawa (West Burke, Vermont)
* * *
the flesh turns brown
after your bite--
green apples
--Debbi Antebi (London, U.K.)
* * *
melon green moon
no way to disambiguate
the taste
--Patrick Sweeney (Misawa, Aomori)
* * *
honeymoon
cutting in half
their first melon
--Eleonore Nickolay (Vaires sur Marne, France)
* * *
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FROM THE NOTEBOOK
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Greetings--
returning early
house martins
--Yutaka Kitajima (Joetsu, Niigata)
Unexpected house guests arrive much too early for the haikuist. He worries about climate changes caused by increasing carbon dioxide emissions, imploring “that the Earth comes first.” Natalie McShane and Isabella Dooley, respectively, comment on erratic weather patterns at the Misawa Air Base in Aomori Prefecture. Marietta McGregor observes swirling water.
What a surprise!
snow in the
middle of April
* * *
Ghost cat
fleeing to
high melting mountains
* * *
foam edging
a thaw-swollen river
freshly-whipped matcha
The Japanese diet is based on the timing that regional farmers follow when cultivating their land. For example, Yuta Kawamura clearly recalls “carrying a huge tea leaf basket on my back and following in the footsteps of my grandmother to a plantation in Chiran, Kagoshima.” Located far to the south of Japan, he assisted in pinching off sencha leaf buds until mid-May. Now a haikuist, and student of washoku at a cooking school in Taipei, Kawamura remains tuned to the farmers’ almanac to create timely haiku and restaurant menus.
Footpath down the hill
she knows each step of the way
picking the first tea
Writing from Dallas where temperature is measured in Fahrenheit, Melanie Vance recalls “A few years back Texas faced severe famine … and most of the industries suffered including the cattle industry.” Writing from New York, Teiichi Suzuki sheds a tear when passing a food vendor.
sun blazing
in triple digits . ..
frozen economy
* * *
Smoke on 7th Avenue
from nearby Korean Town--
barbecued chicken
Luciana Moretto was inspired by the Italian poet Umberto Saba (1883-1957) who compared his daughter to the lightest things in nature. Twelve-year-old Claire Bowman spots the first honeybee to fly at Misawa Air Base this spring. Marilyn Ashbaugh comforts a little girl in Edwardsburg, Michigan.
Drifting cloud and sea foam
windborne blue smoke--
poet’s little girl
* * *
First bee
the honeycomb
is weightless
* * *
shy
she tells me all the dolls
stare at her
When Jennifer Hambrick was a child growing up in Columbus, Ohio, her mother found a recipe in the local paper for “Midnight Salad.” Ever since, a dark green salad of spinach leaves and waves of iceberg lettuce mix and toss with a fabulous homemade garlic dressing on her family’s dinner table. Writing from New York, Natalia L. Rudychev is mesmerized by candlesticks on a table.
midnight salad--
a sea of spinach
in the iceberg’s shadow
* * *
Earth Day
a dancing candle flame
reminds me of you
Ashbaugh’s little girl arranges a bouquet while reciting the rhyme about what a bride should wear: something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue. Eleonore Nickolay shares a delightful morning-after anecdote, explaining how two can live as cheap as one. Angiola Inglese bites into juicy fresh fruit.
May day bouquet
my daughter fills her basket
with borrowed flowers
* * *
honeymoon
sharing
their first melon
* * *
ripe peach--
the taste of summer
along the elbows
Suzuki divides his lunch in two while on visit to New York. Yutaka Kitajima savors his favorite dessert in Joetsu, Niigata Prefecture.
Green Market--
a brunch on the bench
with squirrels
* * *
A sip of
condensed milk in turn--
grandpa’s treat
Simon Hansen suggests mixing up colorful ingredients for an Australian salad. The haikuist shares the tastes and spirits characteristic of his generation.
From Queensland with love
a green tree frog
in a box of mangoes
Charlie Smith drinks his American coffee black. Arvinder Kaur cherishes milk in India. Steliana Voicu uncorks a Romanian vintage.
Forget the cream
forget the sugar
join the dark side
* * *
earthquake--
my grandson runs out
with his milk mug
* * *
wedding anniversary--
opening a honeymoon
wine bottle
Hidehito Yasui toasts this year’s vintage with a rising tonal scale in Osaka.
Do, re, mi, fa, sol . ..
different taste year by year
home-made plum liqueur
Gustative experts cook up delicious haiku at http://www.asahi.com/ajw/special/haiku/. The next issues of the Asahi Haikuist Network appear June 3 and 17. Readers are invited to send haiku that shares news about a new job or business, wedding, new home, baby or even a new pet 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 featuring graduate students 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 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: "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).
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