ASAHI HAIKUIST NETWORK/ David McMurray | The Asahi Shimbun: Breaking News, Japan News and Analysis asahi.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from asahi.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The next issues of the Asahi Haikuist Network appear Aug. 6 and 20. Readers are invited to send haiku about a canoe or a sailboat, on a postcard to David McMurray at the International University of Kagoshima, Sakanoue 8-34-1, Kagoshima, 891-0197, Japan, or by e-mail to (mcmurray@fka.att.ne.jp).
* * *
David McMurray has been writing the Asahi Haikuist Network column since April 1995, first for the Asahi Evening News. He is on the editorial board of the Red Moon Anthology of English-Language Haiku, columnist for the Haiku International Association, and is editor of Teaching Assistance, a column featuring graduate students in The Language Teacher of the Japan Association for Language Teaching (JALT).
Departed souls
white magnolias
The warming climate coaxed the arrival of a cherry blossom on March 26 in Kyoto. That is the earliest ever recorded since 1409. The date of the first Japanese cherry blossom to appear at Jisho Shrine, Kiyomizu Temple, in Kyoto has been tracked for 732 times since the year 812. This long and complete seasonal record serves as proxy evidence that phenologists use to study seasons and that haikuists can use to compare traditional and modern haiku. Subir Ningthouja awaited news of the cherry tree that is faithfully measured at Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo.
Yasukuni shrine...
blossom the season
Satoru Kanematsu received complimentary bus tickets in Nagoya. Enjoying her garden in Tokyo, Junko Saeki was nonplussed by the soaring number of private companies selling Starship tickets to the international space station or around the moon. Tsanka Shishkova was enticed by the new way to travel.