Kurashiki's Canal

Leaf 378 – Looking Back

 

Katsuyuki Nishijima - Breeze (c.1990)

Whenever we use these cups, we always remember warmly the family trip we made there during a chilly, wet February a few years ago.

 

 

Kurashiki’s canal –

memories burnished

into two bizen-ware cups.

 

 

 

 

This haiku was first published in The Haiku Foundation's "Haiku Dialogue" (4 June 2025)

Carbon Copy

Leaf 377 – Reflections

 

Leonid Pasternak - Boris Pasternak Writing (1919)

White. Yellow. Pink. Green. [Indigo]

 

 

Carbon copy –

my name fading

in triplicate.

 

 

 

 

Silver Strand

Leaf 376 – Reflections

 

Sarah Ross Thompson - Tall Shadows

Beauty is (very definitely) in the eye of the beholder.

 

 

Keeping quiet –

a single silver strand

seen in your hair.

 

 

 

Rainbow Puddled

Leaf 375 – Reflections

 

Warning: Engines off. No naked lights.

 

 

Reflected in the sky –

rainbow puddled

beneath a petrol pump.

 

 

 

This haiku was originally written and posted on Bluesky in response to a #dailyhaikuprompt: 'rainbow.'

Photograph Credit: Mathias Reding / Pexels

Unreachable

Loose Leaves – Reflections

 

We live our lives forwards. But at some point, that polarity shifts. In truth though, all we ever really have is the here and now.

 

 

UNREACHABLE

 

Having lived my youth

in the here and now,

while longing for the future

– I now look back

from that future, and long

for the nostalgia,

which I’ve already enjoyed.

 

 

(written whilst listening to Max Richter’s “On the Nature of Daylight”)

 

 

 

Photograph by Estelle Day (1995)

Open Curtains

Leaf 374 – Reflections

 

Andrew Wyeth - Wind from the Sea (1947)

Last year I had the real pleasure, not only of seeing two of my haiku published in ‘Chrysanthemum,’ but also of seeing them translated into German by the editor, Beate Conrad. I’ve only once before seen my haiku translated, and that was way back in the very early days of the internet, when I happened to stumble across one of my haiku which had been translated into Russian. Unfortunately, I’ve long since lost my record of which poem it was and who had translated it. I suspect it was most likely one of my early poems published in ‘still: a journal of short verse.’ It is always interesting to see your words and thoughts translated into another language by someone else, just as it is when attempting to translate one’s own works, or even trying to write them in a different language to our mother tongue.

 

 

Curtains

breathing

in and out.

 

 

***

 

 

Vorhänge

atmen

ein und aus.

(translated by Beate Conrad) 

 

 

 

 

Paul Klee - Fensterausblick, Nordseeinsel (1923)

This haiku was originally published in Chrysanthemum, No. 35 (October, 2025), p. 29

Goldfinches

Leaf 373 – Reflections

 

Kerry Buck - Charm of Goldfinches

Since I was very young, I have always loved goldfinches. When I was a child growing up on the rural edgelands of London sparrows seemed to be everywhere, while goldfinches were a relative rarity. By the time I moved to Japan (a fair few decades later), something had changed in London’s ecology. Sparrows had rapidly declined, while goldfinches had increased. Both birds are favourites of mine for similar reasons. I love hearing them chatter away as they seem to flock together, excitedly dashing from one place to the next. Consequently, goldfinches seemed to be a natural subject for my haiku. I’ve written several haiku about sparrows, but so far this is the first and only haiku I’ve written about goldfinches – and, personally, I think it is one of my best. But not so the editors of modern haiku journals! – I have tried to place it in numerous publications, yet each time it has been turned down and I can’t quite fathom why. A first draft of it was very nearly accepted by one very well-known and much respected haiku magazine; and so, it was duly re-drafted in an attempt to make it more concise, but alas to no avail. For what it’s worth, I present both poems here (the re-draft first, followed by the original version), because I still like both of them very much. I leave it to the reader to decide which they prefer.

 

 

Goldfinches

fast fleeting flashes

gone.

 

 

***

 

 

In fleeting glimpses,

flurries, flashing, fast,

– goldfinches, gone.