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MITSUAKI KOJIMA |
Haikuists are traveling the byways and highways of summer, collecting poems whenever they encounter animals, flowers and fellow travelers.
U.S. high school student Garrett Schneider met a fox. Indian poet Kala Ramesh saw a red rose growing beside the road near his home in Pune. Riitta Rossilahti seems to prefer cycling to walking in Finland.
A fox and I met
once on a darkening path--
does he remember?
Red rose ...
oa passing glance
and it travels in me
Cycling in summer
me an' my shadow
for company
A cooling summer wind meets up with a scarf in the following delightful poem by Romanian poet Clelia Ifrim. The personification leaves readers wondering whether the two skipped lightly away together down the fragrant alley.
Rose alley--
night wind finds
a lost scarf
Matsuo Basho was a slow but persistent traveler. While resting in Nagoya en route to Edo in 1684, "Fuyu no-hi" was published, his first of seven great anthologies. Nobuyuki Yuasa (Penguin Classics) translated this stanza from it:
With a bit of madness in me,
Which is poetry,
I plod along like Chikusai
Among the wails of the wind.
Who is it that runs with hurried steps?
After months of wandering around Japan, in the summer of 1685 Basho headed home for Tokyo. He traveled by foot and wrote poems along the way. This summer, rather than take a speeding Shinkansen, Filipino poet Gary Fua chose to ride a local coach on his way across Japan with a travel companion. Patricia Neubauer released her frustrations by writing a humorous haiku when she got stuck in an airport terminal.
Two old friends
on the summer train for hours
Tokyo bound
Long-delayed flight
only the sedated cat
waits serenely
Temperatures in the usually cold city of Yellowknife in Canada's North West Territories have soared this summer, writes Daniel Li.
Hopping between
air-conditioned places
sweat soaked
Kennosuke Tachibana is staying put in Tokyo this summer, his wife loves gardening.
Paul Conneally seems to be having a hard time with his health and roses in Loughborough, Britain.
Her pleasure
little garden's sensation
Casablancas
An early morning
of back pain and vomit
white climbing roses
Carl Brennan has been gardening; dusting for insects. Sagami Matsuda has been observing ants in her garden located in the suburbs of Osaka.
Ants twisting
themselves almost in half--
poisoned trance
Some greeting
the others parting
ant kingdom
Want to try composing haiku ?
Back numbers
The next issue of the Asahi Haikuist Network appears Sept. 2. Readers are invited to send haiku about summer travels to David McMurray at the International Herald Tribune/Asahi Shimbun, 5-3-2 Tsukiji, Chuo-ku, Tokyo 104-8011, by fax to 03-5541-8539, or by e-mail to ＜is@asahi.com＞.
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ASAHI WEEKLY