MITSUAKI KOJIMA

Fathers around the world are honored with haiku this third Sunday of June.

In Sapporo, Stuart Walker wrote about God to commemorate Father's Day. In Germany, Mathias Korn composed haiku about his children.

Silent congregation
of prayerful birch
heavenly father

Clouds darken
in the children's room
a clock ticks

The following poems were edited to 3-5-3 form. Paul Conneally started to write his haiku from the crack of dawn in Loughborough, England, which implies that the word "sun's" is not essential on the second line.

Marites Omori stirred from her sleep in Yamanashi Prefecture to compose a poem that originally didn't include the reference to "summer."

Sparrow's flight
caught in the first rays
St. Paul's dome

Awakened
from a summer dream
midnight rain

Takako Templin loves laurel so much that she submitted a dozen haiku about the lovely shrub that was used by the ancient Greeks to crown victors in athletic games. Each haiku was presented in a pithy 3-5-3 form.

Laurel grove
veiled in morning mist
standing still

Sapporo International University professors Toyofumi Kanatsu and Jerry Halvorsen penned haiku to prepare their students for a haiku competition on June 25.

Can you hear
the sound of twinkling stars?
high this hill

Lone eagle
soars triumphantly
the sunset

The students likely won't receive laureates as prizes, but winners of the English poetry contest will receive a copy of "Flowers and Trees," a new haiku book by Murasaki Sagano, the nom de plume of Keiko Fujihara. Fifteen of her haiku chosen for the book first bloomed in the Asahi Haikuist Network. Their latest appearance, published May 21 by Win-kamogawa (075-432-3455), is combined with masterful illustrations by kimono artist Taiki.

Manicured
daisy helps me choose
light red nails

A blossoming talent every since she arrived in Kyoto and authored "The Flowers of Haiku," this second anthology confirms she's come into her own. Now in her most vigorous period of creating fine haiku, she takes her readers on a deeply moving walk in the park of human emotions: love, loneliness, death, beauty, illness, birth, remorse, fate, honor, meditation and tender care.

Sunflowers
father hospitalized
bloom of the last bud

The haiku in this collection cultivate both flowers and tree blossoms. They span four seasons. There is a metaphor in each. Similar to a love poem that she found accentuated by flowering Japanese plum and chiseled in stone, "Flowers and Trees" will be a milestone of artistic beauty for a long time to come.

Love poem
carved deep in cold stone
red plum buds

Want to try composing haiku ?

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