Mitsuaki Kojima

　Our network of haikuists recorded the music of the spring winds in their haiku this week. From Maryland, Cathy Drinkwater Better shares a love tune. It is followed by a musical verse from Michael Corr in Nagoya.

Valentine's Day apart
four nameless women
sing you a love song

Minuet
warbles high first
park Mozart

　The skies over Akita have recently been filled with the sound of departing swans, according to Hidenori Hiruta who sat in awe of 25 or 30 great swans heading northward. He felt like shouting out sayonara as they passed him by. From her more southerly vantage in Chiba Prefecture, Nishimura was similarly impressed by swans in take-off position from a nearby pond.

Into dusk
crying out thank you
swans depart

Spring gale
swan sets sail raising
both wings high

　The following interesting trio of poems refer to orchards in spring.

Plum trees know
before weathermen
winter's gone

Peach blossom
start counting the days
until harvest

Breath of spring
stroking my shoulders
orchard way

　Barbara Casterline, a Nagoya-based poet, notes the uncanny ability of trees to guess when it's best to bloom. Fruit farmers, such as Marites C. Omori in Yamanashi, refer to almanacs and depend on weather reports to guide their seasonal activities. Her peaches are due to ripen come May. An almanac is a book that gives information about the movements of the sun and moon, the tides, and forecasts seeding and harvesting. A saijiki is a dictionary organized by seasonal haiku category that provides lists of haiku seasonal phrases for the people, places and things found in haiku along with examples of well-known haiku employing these key words. The third haiku is by Noriko Yoshida, a Tokyo-based teacher of haiga (brush stroke art work that accompanies haiku brushed as calligraphy). She personifies the spring wind and uses a verb commonly used to describe her brush work.

Want to try composing haiku ?

Back numbers

Readers are invited to send haiku for the season to David McMurray at the Asahi Haikuist Network, International Herald Tribune/Asahi Shimbun, 5-3-2 Tsukiji, Chuo-ku, Tokyo 104-8011.