Nov. 6, 2009

Bonfire roast
of fallen leaves--
sweet potatoes

Outdoor fires are prohibited in urban areas, but haikuists in the countryside can readily savor the balmy taste of this poem about roasting sweet potatoes. Koju Fujieda teaches Sunday school to children in Echizen, Fukui Prefecture, where one of the young girls had hoped to take a roasted potato to the home of an elderly woman who could not venture outdoors. Every time Fujieda rakes up leaves he salivates the taste of autumn delights and remembers the kindness of the student. His colleague Reverend Ryokan composed the following haiku.

Enough fallen leaves
to make a bonfire with--
gift from the winds

Richard Jodoin laments not having his haiku selected for a contest he entered. The search for the fabled blue rose is over announces Kiyoshi Fukuzaka.

Autumn leaves
a haikuist turned down
rakes up

"Impossible"
cleared by new rose
blooming blue

Kiyoshi Fukuzawa reaches out from one temple to another with the fragrance of sweet olive.

Sweet olive
temple to temple
linked in fragrance

With help from the swirling winds, Ramona Linke mixes the autumn yellow colors of mustard and birch leaves. Indian poet Gautam Nadkarni notes the care a cat takes in walking down a lane.

Mustard poultice
battling of birch leaves
with the wind

Autumn lane
cat steps gingerly
yellowed leaves

Soematsu Isao marvels at the red reflections from a lake near his home in Nagoya. Sweeping leaves makes Gesine Becker remember she has a loaf of bread in the oven.

Autumn leaves
shining on the mirror
of a still lake

Sweeping leaves
the smell of it--
homemade bread

Helen Buckingham pokes fun at the free papers distributed in London.

Free
paper flyer
a dead leaf

Want to try composing haiku ?

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Send haiku about the end of autumn 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>. The next issue of the Asahi Haikuist Network appears Nov. 20. 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.