MITSUAKI KOJIMA
Back at work
another password:
"Carpe_diem!"
The short string of words and keyboard characters that form e-mail addresses and cellphone numbers are often written tongue-in-cheek so users won't forget them. Similarly, haikuists try to compose memorable poems, with just a few syllables and a touch of humor that their readers can empathize with. Computer passwords are usually guarded secrets, but Beate Conrad allows us into her private domain by whimsically sharing her thoughts about her first day back at work. Every time she opens her computer she'll be reminded to seize the pleasure of each moment in the day without concern for the future.
All of Paul Faust's summer holidays seemed to race on by.
Summer vacations
just a blur of passing time
searching for the brake
Beate Conrad lives near a large field of sunflowers, stretching all the way to autumn she implies in this haiku. In her second haiku about sunflowers she demarcates the end of the day by personifying a thief in the night.
As far as the sky
fields of blooming suns
cooler breeze
Sunflower--
the night swallows
its shadow
Sunflowers shoot up so fast they can outpace a growing teenager at summer camp. Tenshi Sakai notches a wooden post in her living room to take measure of her grandchildren.
Lines up the post
measure the children's height
the boy soars
Bill Cooper enjoys a cup of roasted brown rice tea in the morning. A university professor and president emeritus of the University of Richmond, he explains his way of making every moment count in summer. His preferred cup of tea is moderately priced as the rice serves as a filler in place of tea leaves. In today’s tougher economic times it is a sensible choice. A cup of hot green tea, however, is still the most popular morning pick-me-up in Japan. Shizuka Suzuki tries an even more refreshing aromatic brew at home in Chofu, Tokyo.
Genmaicha
sniffing then sipping
words drop by
At breakfast
slowly waking up
fresh mint tea
First thing in the morning, Roy Lindquist strolls outside in his garden home in Norway to count how many morning glories opened overnight. Perhaps he forgot his slippers. Helen Buckingham ventured out later in the warm sunshine.
Tiny blue
morning glory
dew under my bare feet
Paved garden--
the sun dancing
our bare feet
In addition to counting haiku syllables, haikuists find lots to count. Murasaki Sagano admires flaming fires in the shapes of kanji characters on the mountains surrounding Kyoto.
Farewell fires
of five mountains
unseen links
Teruko Omoto makes us count the pairs of eyes belonging to a relieved mother, proud father, and two sets of happy grandparents.
Big yawn
of a newborn baby
dozen eyes
Shirl Cahayom knows how neighborhood children make fast friends during the summer.
Two by two
children run
to the ice cream truck
Raj Bose sees eye to eye with a carp in a Honolulu pond, Doc Sunday focuses on a dragonfly in a Hiroshima park.
Koi fish and I
watching each other all day...
Yes! Carpe Diem.
Eyeballing
orange dragonfly
versus me
Autumn is on its way to the maple tree-lined hills of Gatineau Park in the Province of Quebec writes Richard Jodoin. Gosia Zamorska sways with the realization that summer's gone.
End of August
new leaves color
the sky
Summer's end--
waves on my island
come and go
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The next issues of the Asahi Haikuist Network appear Sept. 4 and 18. Send haiku about returning to work and going back to school by postcard to David McMurray at the International University of Kagoshima, Sakanoue 8-34-1, Kagoshima, 891-0197, Japan, or e-mail to
