May 15, 2009

Hydrangea
droop in the strong wind
blooms hold fast

Hydrangea seems to long for summer rain in the same way that sunflowers seek the sun. Each spring its woody vines take root in the hardest of soils and during the rainy season its sterile white or showy purple blooms are resilient to the strongest winds and rains. Murasaki Sagano adores the purple hue of the hydrangea from which she took her pen name. She envies the flower's hardiness to the point of personification. Like the hydrangea, perhaps she hopes to endure sadness.

The following poem by Shih-Chou Huang was written while listening to a lecture on haiku poetry on May 1 at National Kaohsiung University of Applied Sciences in Taiwan. He says he writes from the heart then reads his words aloud to see if the language he has used becomes musical. The conference organizer Shouhua Lin pens his haiku in a 3-5-3 syllable form, using a comma to gently break, if for just a moment, his second line.

Summer road
bricks to build and pave
this today

Spring park bench
a couple, a dog
harmony

Charlie Smith is taking a few days away from his usual route to work in Raleigh, North Carolina. Jacob Kobina Ayiah Mensah spends a pensive moment by the sea in Ghana.

Pier to pier
new morning commute
gentle ocean breeze

Sea breeze
at the table
waiting

Vasile Moldovan relaxed on his veranda all day long in Bucharest.

Flies in love
just on my verandah
all spring break

Roses are at their best this month. Kiyoshi Fukuzawa enjoys going for a stroll in the gardens near his home in Tokyo. Rain later forced him indoors to read a good book.

Fragrance
empties a wheelchair
rose garden

Brilliance
halted her story
rose garden

Spring rains
gardening turns to
O. Henry

Ed Gallagher went for a walk in the woods of Colorado Springs, Colorado and found a hot spring with steam rising in the image of a dragon. Winds from Mount Ibukiyama at the border of Gifu and Shiga prefectures never tire writes Paul Tincher.

In the woods
a dragon rises
Shall I go in?

Furiously I
Pedal making no headway
Oh! Ibuki wind …

Want to try composing haiku ?

Back numbers

The next issue of the Asahi Haikuist Network appears May 29. Send haiku about different shades of green by postcard to David McMurray at the International University of Kagoshima, Sakanoue 8-34-1, Kagoshima, 891-0197, Japan, or e-mail to <mcmurray@fka.att.ne.jp>. One haiku is selected for printing in the Asahi Haikuist column in the International Herald Tribune/Asahi Shimbun on the first, third, and fifth Fridays of the month.