MITSUAKI KOJIMA

Crickets are the virtuosos of autumn. The males rub together parts of their forewings to produce the chirping strains that keep Satoru Kanematsu and his fellow poets awake. Foreseeing that he won't get much sleep, Mototaka Yamakami brews a cup of strong tea when the crickets begin playing near his home in Chigasaki.

Cricket songs
as if calling me
all night long

Moonlit garden
cricket serenade
cup of Darjeeling

The crickets start as soon as the sun dips below the horizon, notes Tasuko Toshima in the northern prefecture of Aomori, where the autumn sun goes down before 5 p.m. Aiko Takashima and Masako Yamada confirm the insect prelude takes place at the same time in central Japan, too. Yamada's haiku is about crickets near Tezukayama Gakuin University in Osaka.

Cricket chirp
last trace of daylight
pathos begins

Twilight
five o'clock chimes
striking

Late summer
crickets' chorus begins
twilight moon

In southern Japan, where the crops have finally been taken in and the evenings have grown long, Reiko Nishimura says she welcomes the sounds of the cricket.

Post harvest
day cricket answers
the silence

Only a good rainfall will temporarily stifle the cricket songs, writes Yutaka Kitajima in Niigata. Finding the nights too long anyway, Mickey Nasu says he is quite happy to hear the sound of the leaping orthopteran insects.

A shower alternates with chirps sleepless night

Hard to sleep crickets incessantly chirr midnight companion

Curiously, it has been too warm to get a good night's sleep in much of Britain this fall. In addition to a sweltering heat wave in London this summer, "We have had the hottest October on record," writes Paul Conneally.

He says, "Maybe it's global warming as some fruit trees have even been hoodwinked into blossoming again." A similar phenomenon was also written about by J.D. Heskin in the farming belt of Minnesota.

Old men snooze
in the arboretum
wasps on pears

In slow moving shade,
the old men gather
to remember

Mitsuko Uchida sent a haiku to make her debut in the Asahi Haikuist Network. In Yellowknife, Canada, at this time of year there is not much color, which is perhaps why Daniel Li added a splash of orange.

No unity
oranges whisper
where will we go?

Strolling along
morning river bank
spilling orange juice

Kei Kimura also likes to pen her autumn poetry in the color of fresh orange.

Coming back
to this orange world
melancholy

Want to try composing haiku ?

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The next issue of the Asahi Haikuist Network appears Dec. 2. Send haiku about first snows 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 .