MITSUAKI KOJIMA

September is a month of transience. Ripening fields of wheat contain the searing heat of summer, but they are also swept by cooling winds of autumn. Autumn cool is not the biting cold felt deep in the bones come midwinter, but it can chill the spirit. The fall of the year is measured by the fall of leaves and the fall in human vitality. Poets refer to September as the leaf-month.

Reiko Nishimura heard autumn flowing through the trees near her home in Chiba. Anna Akamatsu felt the melancholy winds blow through a field of scented lavender in Kawasaki.

Rustling leaves
behind summer breeze
autumn

Glaring sun
but the wind is cool
lavender

In autumn, eucalyptus trees bloom, pears and apples ripen, chestnuts soften, maples turn red, willow and paulownia tree leaves fall, and a few persimmons are left on trees for passing birds. Honeysuckle and mulberry bushes are currently brimming with fruit, write Laryalee Fraser in British Columbia and Nobuchika Wakabayashi in Yamanashi.

Just enough
for one full breath ...
honeysuckle breeze

Mulberries
although quite invisible
the black kite sings

Hardy vines and bushes reach their maximum height by early autumn. The rose of Sharon is an ornamental bush that can stretch 3 meters along a fence. Morning glories and pampas grass reach as high as they can toward September skies, though bush clover hugs closer to the ground. Michael Corr witnessed the end of the line for a sprawling patch of arrowroot, while Satoru Kanematsu could almost see a snake gourd move in moonlight. Both these talented haikuists live in Nagoya.

"No blooms"
lass tugging wall vines
arrowroot

Snake gourd blooms
untangling itself
in moonlight

Craig Hasbrouck writes haiku about the soaring cedar and pine trees near his home in Vancouver.

Night, I meditate
one cigarette at a time
cedars start to sigh

Staring at the sky
on a wooden bench
wind-brushed pines

Angelika Kolompar lives on Vancouver Island in British Columbia. The province is famous for its rainforests that are used for lumber and tourism. Father Francis Attard wrote his haiku on the island of Malta.

Under the cedars
an old man sits alone
with his memories

Chopping wood
by the monastery gate
monk in dungarees

Gigliola Pagano walks through a park on her way home from school every afternoon in Canterbury, where she is training to be a teacher. Anri Maruyama wrote her haiku while walking home from Konan Women's University in Kobe where she studies literature.

Little squirrel
held by an old tree
the slow way home

Cicadas
the rain has stopped
tree-lined street

Autumn trees are the theme for a haiku contest taking place during Kita-Kyushu City's annual International Week festival. Readers of the Asahi Haikuist Network are invited to participate in the contest and a lecture titled Poems for Mother Earth on Oct. 14.

Winners of a previous contest held by the same organizers were announced in the Asahi Haikuist Network Web site www.asahi.com/english/haiku/031027.html. Contest details and a poster are available at www.seinan-jo.com/haiku.

Want to try composing haiku ?

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The next issues of the Asahi Haikuist Network appear Sept. 15 and 29. Mail haiku to David McMurray at the International Herald Tribune/Asahi Shimbun, 5-3-2 Tsukiji, Chuo-ku, Tokyo 104-8011, fax 03-5541-8539, or e-mail <is@asahi.com>.