MITSUAKI KOJIMA

Monsoon rains have finally given way to bright starry nights. Juana Oritz is one of the first poets to send the Asahi Haikuist Network a poem this year observing tanabata, a festival commemorating star-crossed lovers. With light comes shadow though, a metaphor for worry. A farmer in Yamanashi, Marites C. Omori is also being followed by her shadow.

Moon night stars
she takes a walk
with her shadows

Peach harvest
walking beside me
my shadow

The star festival is on the seventh night of the seventh month. Legend has it that the daughter of the Master of Heaven spent so long on her honeymoon that he only allowed her to see her husband once a year thereafter. The daughter is the Weaver star lying to the east of the Milky Way, the son-in-law a Cowherd star lying to the west. Master poet Kiyoshi Takayama composed this haiku for the nuptials.

Tanabata no uta kaku hito ni yorisoinu

Star festival
writing a poem
she leans closer

Polish composer Jacek Margolak talked to his son recently, whereas Canadian poet Jared Mysko continues to miss his. Omori has missed her dad for a long time.

Father's Day
the son's call
about his first time

As the storm approaches
my ears begin to bleed
and my son wonders where I be

Father's kiss
in the photograph
long ago

Ian Willey writes laconically about how quickly his daughter is growing in Takamatsu. Kiyoshi Fukuzawa measures his life by the length of time he's enjoyed hydrangea in his Tokyo neighborhood.

A shadow
on the tatami
her crib gone

Deep in blue
the same hydrangea
half my life

Time waits for no man, whether he's ill or on vacation, write Koju Fujieda in Echizen and Beate Conrad in Michigan.

Hydrangea
time flows as usual
in sick room, too

Drop by drop
outside my cabin
time's running

J.D. Heskin is also ailing these days in Minnesota. Another poet not feeling well, Gautam Nadkarni, concocted an energizing health drink in Mumbai.

The soup
thinner this summer
and so am I

In bad health
I take a wholesome drink--
dandelion coffee

Dianna Bartosh wrote from Texas to say that she is grieving for a lost son. Life is more carefree for Grzegorz Sionkowski in Torun, Poland.

Life ceases to be
like dandelions in wind
misery remains

Sunny meadow
blowing dandelions
in the wind

Want to try composing haiku ?

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The next issue of the Asahi Haikuist Network appears July 21. Readers are invited to mail haiku about summer vacations 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>.