MITSUAKI KOJIMA

Informed consent
silence after a while
first spring storm

In three short lines, Murasaki Sagano draws her readers into the bewildering calm she felt while being warned about the dangers of undergoing a medical trial. Informed consent is the difficult decision someone makes after listening to a doctor’s explanation and before entering a medical experiment. Suitably forewarned we immediately face the powerful pent-up forces that burst open in this haiku. First spring storms, haru ichiban usually hit Japan in March. Storms and gales also refer to human behaviors such as anger and laughter. Sagano vividly describes the latent moment using artistic synesthesia, a poetic technique to confuse our sensory perception of destructive gale-force spring winds and a stormy emotional outburst. Her collection of haiku, “Colored Breeze,” was published in July 2007 by Win-Kamogawa in Kyoto.

Commencement
girls in kimono
flowers dance

Doc Sunday composed this haiku during the March 14 graduation ceremony of the Japanese Red Cross Hiroshima College of Nursing. A spring breeze unfurled the blossoms, and made the spring designs on the kimono and hakama move about tantalizingly in the winds. Rebba Singh reflects on a quiet moment she enjoyed near home in Lucknow, India.

A transient moment
in soft pink petals woven
unfurls heaven

The next haiku by Kiyoshi Fukuzawa mentions warmer spring winds that caressed Tokyo. Katarzyna Predota observed spring winds beautifully mix reds and browns in the Polish countryside.

Little girl
back turned to spring wind
talks to a cat

Breath of spring wind
in her russet hair
brilliance of sun

The following haiku about a stolen kiss by Quamrul Hassan was voted one of the 10 best haiku at the 9th World Haiku Festival in India. Israeli poet Tanya Dikova received an honorable mention in the 18th Ito En Oi Ocha New Haiku Contest of 2007.

Spring moon
the sole witness
of the stolen kiss

A visit
two tiny feathers
on the sill

Satoru Kanematsu laments traffic conditions in Nagoya. Mickey Nasu chuckles at the traffic conditions during his vacation in Ishigakijima island. Tokyo-based Noriko Yoshida makes us think she may have been caught up in a similar traffic jam, but she wrote her haiku at a park brimming full of spring flowers.

Hazy moon
bumper to bumper
driving home

Buffalo-cart
treading through island village
slow life

Spring haze
searching for an exit
from this maze

Want to try composing haiku ?

Back numbers

Readers are invited to submit haiku about falling cherry blossoms to David McMurray at the International University of Kagoshima, Sakanoue 8-34-1, Kagoshima, 891-0197 or e-mail to <mcmurray@fka.att.ne.jp>. One haiku will be highlighted in the April 18 new spring issue of the Asahi Haikuist and runners up will be featured in the Asahi Haikuist Network and From the Notebook at <www.asahi.com/english/haiku>.