MITSUAKI KOJIMA

Haiku contain words to mark a moment in time. Note the effective use of such seasonal markers in this week's selections. Masami Fujita demarcated summer and fall in the time it took to turn one of the pages of his newspaper. Missing his train, Francis Attard had time to enjoy tea with a stranger. Sipping his tea, Charlie Smith realized that fall had begun.

The following poem by Matsuda Sagami shares his feelings of loneliness on the night of the most beautiful full moon of the year. A golden harvest moon rose a few days prior to the September equinox. Satoru Kanematsu visited his father's grave on the equinox-the day the sun crosses the equator, giving equal time for light and darkness all over the world.

No friends
no family
harvest moon

Equinox
sharing breeze with dad
at his grave

Seasonal words mark a particular moment, whereas the haiku's format-its lines and grammatical structure-splice that moment into two or more images. A colon signals that a second statement will illustrate the first. The colon used by Yutaka Kitajima in the next haiku affords just enough time for the reader to think about what the crescent moon looks like before revealing the poet's final thought.

Crescent moon:
what else can I see
but your brow?

The artful proper use of the colon can confer air and grace. The annunciatory colon used by Shoichi Kuroda in the next haiku encourages the reader to hear a ``Yes!''

Summer dawn:
a crow reads aloud
long musical note

An "ah" colon reminds the reader there is likely more to the initial statement than meets the eye. Koju Fujieda used a bolder question mark to share his puzzlement over what he first thought he saw in his temple garden.

White herons
stand in the garden?
Casablanca

Some haikuists prefer to use a dash instead of a colon. Udo Wenzel and Alan Maley, respectively, use the dash in the next poems to indicate a break in their thinking. In prose, the dash marks a break in the sentence structure. In poetry, the end of the line serves that function, so a dash at the end of the line amplifies the second thought.

Hiroshima--
shadow of a man
remains light

The woods are rusting
under this October rain--
leaves of bright copper

A semicolon can gracefully join two lines to help the reader understand two simultaneous events. This effect applies best in haiku that juxtapose two images in one moment, as in the next two offerings. Nobuko Masakawa shares a bittersweet thought with us while watching TV. James Roderick Burns decided his juxtaposition of two very different images didn't need punctuation.

Everyday
I used to swim too;
TV sports

Among the bluebells
an aluminium can
explodes in the sun

Teruko Omoto didn't have time to think when she saw a shooting star. She missed her chance to make a wish, so her haiku moment doesn't contain any punctuation. At the first line break, her poem seems to pause. Sachiyo Kitano's haiku naturally pauses at the end of the first and second lines. By placing a semicolon at the end of the second line, however, she ensures that her readers don't interpret the whole scene as a piece of prose rather than a haiku poem.

Can't recall
my greatest wish
shooting star

No more leaves
at the bottom of the dam;
autumn wind


-END-

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The next issue of the Asahi Haikuist Network appears Oct. 15. Readers are invited to mail haiku about the arrival of autumn, contest announcements and haiku books for review to David McMurray at the International Herald Tribune/Asahi Shimbun, 5-3-2 Tsukiji, Chuo-ku, Tokyo 104-8011. For a color version of the Asahi Haikuist Network vist www.asahi.com/english/haiku.