Mitsuaki Kojima

　When a haikuist incorporates another artist's melodic line into their poem, it is considered a compliment and a tribute. Taking this idea a little further and almost in parody, in his haiku above Satoru Kanematsu answered a question master poet Matsuo Basho posed a few weeks before his death in 1694 when he wrote:

Aki fukaki tonari wa nani o suru hito zo. Fall deepens
what are the neighbors
doing now?

　Narrative poems like this rely on the grammar of the sentence to provide the literal meaning of the poem, and rely on its irony to point to the pathos of a dying man not knowing what his neighbors are up to. Basho also mentioned seeing tears in the eyes of fish when he set out in spring on a journey around Japan, as does Shoji Sugisaka in Yokohama who composed the next poem with an autumnal reference.

Tideland goby
eyes full of tears
bathing moon

　The haiku phrase deepening of autumn implies the deepening of sorrow, and this autumn haikuists have submitted many haiku containing the keyword tears.
　Tatsuko Toshima in Aomori and Hidenori Hiruta in Akita, respectively, shed tears in memory.

Cannot abandon
old memory of dolls
crying autumn
Familiar faces
rising again in tears
sad September

　The next poem was composed in Joetsu, Niigata Prefecture, by Yutaka Kitajima. It is followed by a cathartic reply by Osaka's Teruko Omoto.

Past midnight
insects too noisy
she's still out
Evening shower
washing away street dust
my tears too

Want to try composing haiku ?

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Send haiku for the last days of autumn to David McMurray at the Asahi Haikuist Network, International Herald Tribune/Asahi Shimbun, 5-3-2 Tsukiji, Chuo-ku, Tokyo 104-8011.