MITSUAKI KOJIMA

No more play
kids leave for cram school
four o'clocks

Fragrant yellow, red, and white cup-shaped flowers originally imported from Peru, four o'clocks open late in the afternoon in the haikuist's autumnal garden. This is the time of day when Satoru Kanematsu, a retired English teacher sees school children head off to study with their math tutors and language school instructors. The students and the petal-less flowers were probably both hanging their heads low. The succinctly penned haiku offers a sad, yet delightfully humorous image for the reader.

Haikuists can use a full palette of colors in autumn. Kim Chamberlain enlists the help of a famous painter to mix images in the reader's mind. A poet in California she is also a realist, juxtaposing the moving colors of trees brought on by the changing season with the freeways of Long Beach. Beate Conrad contrasts the colors of rust and maple in the glow of autumn sunshine.

As if
Van Gogh had gardened them
fall rushes

Waist deep
in autumn color
jammed freeway

Behind a junkyard
some maple trees competing
with the morning sun

Haikuists refer to the morning glory when they want readers to conjure images of autumn. Although his morning glories started to bloom in July, Kiyoshi Fukuzawa continues to admire the deepest blue shade named “heavenly blue.” When the autumn sun goes down at six o'clock it steals away the beautiful blues and whites of the sky, notes Paul Faust from his home in Kobe.

Morning glory
heavenly blue by name
still in bloom

The hills blaze bright
the sky of blue, spotted white
wiearly comes the night

The blue of autumn skies caught Sosuke Kanda's eye. A retired businessman, he knows that an effective way to come up with new ideas is to take a “blue sky approach,” or to say whatever comes to mind first. He empathizes with students who can talk for hours at outdoor coffee shops.

Autumn sky
students deep in debate
terrace cafe

Shinya Osozawa, a well-known poet residing in Tokyo, was moved by a caress from an autumn breeze. Zachary Hammer, a haikuist resident in Ehime, employs every color he knows to help him share his message.

Autumn breeze
softly touched away
on my face

Myriad colors
inked on letters from the soul
bourne in airy arms

Polish poet Matthew Dawiec uses a deep brown shade to color his haiku.

Coffee-colored flood
I walk across the water
not the vernal bridge

Valeria Barouch stirs a lightly sweetened poetic mixture by adding sugar to the deep red color of berries from the Swiss Alps near her home in Switzerland.

Drooping twigs of red
call forth father's scratched hand
stirring barberry jam

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