MITSUAKI KOJIMA

June is a favorite month for weddings. When she wrote her poem, Shizuka Suzuki may have been feeling a little jealous of her brother who recently got married in Tokyo. She wants to be a June bride, too. Masako Yamada penned her poem at a wedding ceremony she attended in Osaka as soon as she saw a warm tear trickle down the cheeks of the father of the bride.

Venus shines
on the wedding night
first brother

Bride's father
looks away
hiding his tears

Andrew Leong in Yokohama notes that June is also the month when the rainy season begins.

Toshio Matsumoto composes a gentler poem about the lighter spring rain. Yutaka Kitajima in Niigata notes that Father's Day is celebrated on the third Sunday in June.

Dark light dark
rain clouds
crescent moon

Only spring rain
can permeate your heart
stone Buddha

Father's stick
in hand--plodding through
verdant hills

A poem by Satoru Kanematsu was awarded first prize at a gathering of the China-Japan Friendship Haiku group that met in Nagoya earlier this spring.

He translated his entry into English for readers of the Asahi Haikuist Network. He chose a large white flower of the buttercup family. Tatsuko Toshima celebrated her grandmother's birthday in Aomori with a bright red ornamental garden shrub.

White peony
admiring with mom
soon one hundred

Azalea's red
bursting
grandma's anniversary

Keiko Fukunaga won first prize at a Satsuma Sakura Haiku club meeting in Kagoshima last month for a poem she composed after returning home from a short stay in the hospital. Satoru Kanematsu wrote a poem expressing his joy at having convalesced.

Garden scent
recovering health
my home

Summer breeze
strokes my regrown hair
disease cured

Mothers and particularly grandmothers around the world must be feeling a little morose now that the excitement of Mother's Day has ended.

Kiyoshi Fukuzawa pens a poem for his daughter. Mototaka Yamakami writes a poem that looks forward to the summer holidays.

Daughter alone
caught its faint scent
ancient wisteria

Long holiday
grandchildren's homecoming
flow and ebb

New York-based poet Wen Wei was delighted with the present his daughter, Amy, gave to him.

She penned this haiku on a birthday card sent from Washington:

Light green welcoming
small sips before the dawn breaks,
good morning comfort

Want to try composing haiku ?

Back numbers

The next issue of the Asahi Haikuist Network appears June 16. Readers are invited to mail haiku for Father's Day on June 17 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 e-mail to <is@asahi.com>.