MITSUAKI KOJIMA

　This week, graduating students stand and bow farewell to their schools. Doc Sunday (Hiroshi Kawane) teaches at the Japan Red Cross Medical University in Hiroshima where tears were mixed with petals. Reika Ban is a student of haiku in Michael Corr's English literatre class at Aichi University. After four years of literature study, her haiku seems to refer to her being able to survive on her own.

Graduates
in kimono sob
pink flowers


All alone
I withstand a small
drop of rain

　Mickey Nasu graduated years ago in Tokyo. He's reminded of his school days every spring; perhaps because of the blossoms. Or was it the sad spring rain? Anna Akamatsu saw a man deeply moved by a display of dolls. Such word association is the power behind the use of seasonal references in haiku. Although haiku contain only a few words, they make the reader think of many more. Readers conjure up their own metaphors for their own needs.

Every spring:
alma mater school
days gone by


Dolls of March
the severe old man
smiles at them

　Marites C. Omori lives on a fruit orchard in Yamanashi. In this pair of haiku, she measures the coming of spring by the size of peach buds and the zest of her boy playing outside.

Greenhouse peach
buds swelling
spring soon


Buds swelling
on green house peaches
the boy goes out

　The following haiku by Reiko Nishimura in Kumamoto and Vasile Moldovan in Romania encompass an even larger spring scene. A single bud on the tip of a tree or a puff of spring wind can conjure up an entire mountain valley of blossoms.

Branch tips rest
before budding
mountain haze


Spring wind_
the whole valley filled
with petals

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