full of marbles
Kana Shiozaki, a creative writing student at Hokusei Gakuen University, penned this haiku about springtide with an ellipsis that makes readers pause before the third line.
digging in the sand
confidence
Making her debut to this column from New Braunfels, Texas, during a COVID-19 lockdown, Kathleen Vasek Trocmet might have felt her life was experiencing a total lunar eclipse.
anger management
blood moon
Angela Giordano paused with a caesura of excitement: oh, the fireflies. the stars have come down into the garden. In Itta Bena, Mississippi, John Zheng very efficiently cut his lawn and haiku.
yard-mowing
of a firefly
Raegan Bradbury (Misawa, Aomori Prefecture)
The 11-year-old haikuist at Sollars Elementary sketched a peaceful scene of sea turtles returning on the tide to lay eggs on the beach where they were born. His classmate, Aaron Royston, discovered a remarkable stone.
Small ravine
of a stone goddess
Arvinder Kaur alluded to the words of Peggy Willis Lyles (1939-2010), which appeared in a 1980 issue of “Cicada” in Canada: summer night we turn out all the lights to hear the rain.
quarantine
to hear the rain
Noisy Brood X periodical cicadas that remained underground for 17 years are emerging by the trillions now that ground temperatures are soaring over 17 degrees Celsius in North America. Haikuists have to clamor quickly to mark this generation in 17 syllables. Soil warms earlier because of climate change. Before 1950, cicadas used to emerge at the end of May; now they’re already singing. Matsuo Basho (1644-1694) experienced both rain and insect songs in Yamagata Prefecture.
under the trees and bamboo
enough for the birds
Tsanka Shishkova’s uphill climb was fruitful, leading her to write this line: the scent of spring plums on the hill.
Stephen Toft wrote this one-liner about whispering to cattle in Lancaster, U.K.: spring blossom i sing to the bull.
Wade German made a pilgrimage in Delta, British Columbia.
spring snow.
to master’s shrine
Vladislav Hristov bowed under an old, bent evergreen in Plovdiv, Bulgaria. Realizing that Jesus of Nazareth may have been crucified on a cross made from the yew tree, Mario Massimo Zontini counted his blessings in Parma, Italy. Francoise Maurice’s ears perked toward the treetops in Draguignan, France. Kanematsu swayed sacred tree leaves during prayers.