MITSUAKI KOJIMA

　The intense summer heat has finally relented.

　Mosquitoes found the heat to be unbearable writes Ian Willey from his sun-baked home in Shikoku, but the cicada seemed to thrive on it implies Hidehito Yasui in Osaka.

　Michael Corr composed an Ode to the Heat. He linked dozens of stanzas, each pithily structured in a 3-5-3 syllable format.

　Satoru Kanematsu penned two haiku about goldfish enjoying a swim, and asks which is better. The first version places the searing season word, scorching heat on the third or the lingering final line. It develops through deductive reasoning: The reader becomes capable of concluding how terrible the temperature is by reading the first two lines. The second, an inferential version, reads more comically with its image of the keeper imploring his fish to move over.

　Indian poet Kala Ramesh also tries deductive reasoning in the next poem about baring one's soul. An intended pun can be found in the similar sounding word, sole. Chitra Rajappa penned a poem about thunder in Bangalore, India. Thunder is traditionally a summer season word in haiku because people tend to remain indoors during the heat.

　Lightning is an autumnal reference because it is usually seen during the cooler harvest season when people are encouraged to be outdoors.

　Vera Almeida wrote about thunder in England. Beate Conrad writes about a thundering train.

　Mototaka Yamakawa combined the sounds of singing cicada with booming thunder to make an orchestra. Hitoshi Doi writes about his summer daydreams.

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The next issue of the Asahi Haikuist Network appears Sept. 30. Readers are invited to send haiku about the beginning of autumn and contest announcements for review 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＞.