January 20, 2012

Lightning flash
Kabuki actor
glares from the wall

The haikuist attended a Kabuki performance on New Year's Day. He says he was enthralled by the glaring faces made by Ebizo Ichikawa, the star of the show. On his wall at home, he hangs an ukiyo-e (woodblock print) of a Kabuki actor by Toshusai Sharaku, the unrivaled Edo Period theatrical print artist.

New Year’s Eve
clocks in unison
every room

Waking up at dawn--
the year's first sunrise and I
stretch by the window

Looking forward to a symphony of chimes, cuckoos and percussion alarms at midnight, Hajimu Nakano accurately sets the time on all the clocks in his Tokyo home. Priscilla Lignori rose with the first sunrays to reach her high-rise apartment in New York City.

Before the year ended, Lignori and her family had been busy at work housecleaning. After her New Year’s party ended, Stella Pierides was busy at work in the kitchen.

Vacuum cleaner hums
as the children fold towels--
guests on New Year's Eve

Gray morning
cut camellia in my last
clean glass

Canadian haikuist Marco Fraticelli waited until he was on vacation before mailing his year-end greeting cards. Kiyoshi Fukuzawa explains the importance of sending New Year’s greeting cards on time in Japan.

Packing for Florida
my inbox full of wishes
for a white Christmas

Reunion
starts with thanks for
New Year's card

A red bird came to visit Lignori when she wasn’t feeling well. Crows the size of dogs chased her back to work in New York.

Sick on New Year's Day--
comforted by the cardinal
in the hemlock tree

Dropping off the mail
I'm greeted by barking crows--
returning to work

Rahadian Tanjung acknowledges the varied pursuits of a doctor in Indonesia.

The doctor
moonlighting
tends silkworms

Christine L. Villa creates a haiku from a superstition she learned about in the Philippines. Displaying 12 different round fruits in a bowl on the dining table on New Year’s Day brings good luck for the whole year. Murasaki Sagano savors traditional Japanese cuisine in Kyoto during the New Year holidays.

Bowl of fruits
a New Year's wish
in every bite

The same taste
as mother made
friend's Osechi dish

In Tokyo, Mickey Nasu cuddles up to his granddaughter for their first photograph opportunity of the year. The first winds of the year to blow onto Misawa Airbase felt very cold to 11-year-old Kelissa Holloway. Satoru Kanematsu shivers while watching television.

Family reunion photo
next to granddaughter
my favorite spot

first wind
chills
me

Weatherman
brings with his pointer
a cold wave

Writing from Arizona, Steven Carter juxtaposes life and death. Shizuka Suzuki sketches desolation.

Pinks of a New Year's birth
your death-day
. . . morning twilight

Crow in a bare town
New Year’s Day
where are you from?

Ian Willey composed a haiku shortly after finding out that his wife is pregnant with their third child. His ninth-floor condominium in Takamatsu has a fine view of a river running alongside a mountain to the Seto inland sea. An egret flying the length of the river caught his eye.

The third child . . .
an egret flies
the river's length

The bird’s course is a metaphor for what he believes happens with children; “they have to take flight and find their own path, and all parents can do is watch from a distance. I can feel it happening even now with our kids, now 4 and 6 years old. And they're entering a world much harsher than the one I knew as a kid.”

Want to try composing haiku ?

Back numbers

The next issues of the Asahi Haikuist Network appear Feb. 3 and 17. Readers are invited to send haiku about love on a 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