MITSUAKI KOJIMA

Romanian poet Clelia Ifrim colors the background of his haiku with silver mist, and Michael Corr also fills in the edges of his poem with autumn mist. He sent in an alternate version suggesting hazy crags could be better, but haze is more commonly a reference to spring.

Silver mist
stevedores unload
keg by keg

Spear and pole
fishing beneath crags
cloud and mist

Patricia Neubauer was calmly sitting in an autumn mist-filled park when all of a sudden a dog came bounding along pulling its owner. I recommend removing the time adverbs, first and then. The lines of the poem more efficiently provide that rhythm. By negating an image of two scarecrows, Reiko Nishimura activates the classic autumnal image in the reader's mind. If you ask your reader not to think of something, he'll immediately visualize it. The verb chat seems inconsequential and diminishes the effect of the simile.

Out of the fog
first a black Labrador
then a jogger

Rice ripened fields
not two scarecrows but
two men chat

Satoru Kanematsu's haiku moment was waiting for him early in the morning on his front doorstep. Hidehito Yasui found his gleaming from the middle of a purple shroud.

Autumn chill
the morning paper
screams NUCLEAR

Stone Buddha
surrounded by cosmos
merciful smile

Shoji Sugisaka found his haiku reflected in a kitchen sink full of water. Pittsburgh-based poet Natalia L. Rudychev found hers while raising a glass.

Cutting lotus
the water surface
the autumn sky

Some poets believe the full moon is too perfect, however, and prefer the kurimeigetsu, the bright chestnut moon that shines more demurely on jusanya, the 13th night of the ninth lunar month. The ninth full moon of the year is named atonotsuki, the later moon. Look for it on Nov. 3 this year, an auspicious occurrence because that is also Bunka-no-hi, Culture Day, the holiday for celebrating culture. Satoru Kanematsu will be looking for signs of Pluto.

Starry sky
one fewer planet
this autumn

Autumn equinox--
my half empty glass
half full in mom's eyes

Konomi Yano refers to green leaves in autumn, and Jeffrey Lee juxtaposes autumn leaves with new leaves. The combinations appear contradictory because haiku are at their best when they take place in one moment, in one season.

Early autumn
green maples
wave in the wind

Autumn leaves
words gather hue
new leaf in mind

The oxymoron in Yano's haiku works well, however, because it invokes the sense of imminent change. Lee lives in tropical Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. The image of reddening leaves in more temperate zones prompted him to think of fresh new ideas, an experience that he metaphorically refers to as turning a new leaf.

Chie Ikinaga's gregarious brothers helped her write a haiku. Rory Schneeberger personifies the autumn weeds he culled from his garden in Yachimata, Chiba Prefecture.

Eating grapes
three brothers spit seeds
at each other

Throw the robbers out
burn them in the pile
weeds

Want to try composing haiku ?

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The next issue of the Asahi Haikuist Network appears Nov. 18. Send haiku about falling leaves, contest announcements and haiku anthologies 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 .