July 3, 2009

Ibises
gaze from Sado Isle
Milky Way

Having survived a harsh winter on an island off the north coast of Niigata, Japan, four extremely rare female crested ibis migrated to the mainland. "Four males remained behind" laments Yutaka Kitajima, noting there are only eight such wild birds in Japan despite artificial cross-breeding attempts with birds in China. This sad ecological fate resembles tanabata, a folktale about two star-crossed lovers separated by the Milky Way who can meet only once a year on July 7.

Summer vacation
across the Milky Way
no ferry so far

Milky Way . . .
on the uninhabited island
birds sing all night

Beate Conrad may have composed her poem while left waiting a long time for her ferryboat across Lake Michigan, one of the five Great Lakes in North America. Michael McClintock writes about spending a night on what seems a paradise island.

Aki Takamoto recently returned to Australia where he had lived a decade ago. "It was a sentimental journey" he reports and the "first homage you have to pay is to Mount Coot-tha." A beautiful Japanese garden lies at its foothills and its lookout has fabulous views over Brisbane, the Gold Coast to the south, islands to the east and the Glass House Mountains to the north. Standing at the summit of the mountain, he realized that although he had sacrificed a lot by leaving he retains a certain pride that "it was the way my life had been."

Forgoing things dear
I came back to this summit
Mt. Coot-tha in fall

Serpentine shadow
stately Brisbane River
capricious

Mario Zontini pens an idyllic scene of a river in Italy. Michael Corr delights in watching birds on a beach in Washington. Richard Jodoin strolled along the banks of the St. Lawrence River in Montreal.

The lazy river--
after the summer rain
brushstrokes of silver

Undertow
diving in breakers
sandpipers

Summer rain
a lone frog
on the quay

The following two poems by German poet Angela Cornelia Voss strike a melancholic note with the stars in heaven and star-shaped flowers in her garden.

Stars
pictures of the universe
change places as I did

Father's Day gone
forget-me-not
in half shade

Satoru Kanematsu composes an ode to his father who passed away 44 years ago at the height of his profession as a medical doctor at just 45 years of age.

Father's Day
dad in the photo
young n' handsome

Sosuke Kanda visited Kyoto this month. His son lives in Kyushu.

Daimonji Bon fire
having nothing heard from him
for a long time

Horst Ludwig personifies a line of stone faces in a park in Minnesota. Jacob Kobina Ayiah Mensah writes forebodingly from Ghana.

Summer rain
the statues' faces
awash in tears

First rain
His shadow covers
the graveyard

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Back numbers

The next issues of the Asahi Haikuist Network appear July 17 and 31. Send haiku about your hometown 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>. One haiku is selected for printing in the Asahi Haikuist column in the International Herald Tribune/Asahi Shimbun on the first, third, and fifth Fridays of the month at <www.asahi.com/english/haiku>.