Under the Bashō 2023
Haibun

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Written by: Alice Wanderer

leafy tunnel
the point where the road
disappears

For three years or so it was my favourite spot on earth.

I’d take the old stone steps down through the rhododendrons, then wait, gathering any last moments of beauty to bring to our conversation, before I rang the bell.

bronze on red –
an eastern spinebill among
red camellias

last leaves –
a fast one in a slow one’s
flutter path

What we talked about is now less important than how we talked. I remember our laughter. And how our eyes met over the antics of wrens, a sudden shaft of sunlight, or punctuating thunder.

it warms
my hands too –
kissing bird motif

I did not imagine it would all be over so thoroughly or so soon.

roosting butterflies  
disperse – inspiration for
a home of my own

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Written by: Anthony Lusardi

on the highest hill. the fog is the thickest. yet leaving the tall grass. the white-tailed deer stand. transfixed. allured by the neon glow of a crucifix. looking indecisive. some cross the road. others stay. as if waiting for some sign . . . for some answer.                       

midsummer morn—
all the daylilies
take in the heat

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Written by: Diana Webb

So the earth has gone around the sun five centuries and a half since you took your first breath on the planet, young Nicolas Copernicus. You're quite a celebrity now. You even have a crater on the moon named after you. Quite a synchronicity then that we rescued a sundial from the tip in this birthday week. And now as the sun strikes an old steel bucket by the yew, it shines like the biggest candle I've ever seen.

songbird flown
the hollowed out coconut
spins deosil

Author’s Note: The title is taken from the poem “Ode: Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood” by William Wordsworth.

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Written by: Diana Webb

in a circle of stones much visited - a hit for the sun - a hit a very palpable one - a hit for the tourist at home and abroad - hit for the archaeologists all with conflicting theories that make the world turn round - and as for things that turn around there's a circle of pods where each can reach the place allotted nearest the solar star - time after time and day by day- it's a wheel by the sea of the spindrift

ice cube mingles

spokes resembling threads in the stun  of the spider forming scaffolding of the web as he aims for dewdrops in imitation diaphanous pods or is it the other way round in the hint of an eventual swivel to glint

the cryogenics

and this could be your highest point, your chance to shine, if you're centred in a drop like a pea as you touch the ozone layer in a sip of froth at dawn to a different drum

of the round 

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Written by: Farah Ali

As the British Empire’s foremost entomologist, not only do I possess the largest taxidermy collection in the civilised world, I was once granted the honour of discussing a new species of beetle with Her Majesty Queen Victoria. Understandable then, that my death proved to be one of the most perplexing and sensational mysteries of the age. Even to this day, nobody knows how I ended up pinned and preserved alongside my most exotic specimens, a thousand moths swarming the window and blocking the light.

insectarium
fat larvae nestle
within cold meat

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Written by: Janet Ruth

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Written by: Jerome Berglund

Having just awoken I went clumsily bumbling around a cluster of wires and cords converging chaotically in a splitter plugged into the wall by my bedside I was trying to snag a usb to micro conversion cord so I could download some footage from the previous night’s demonstrations to upload and disseminate on the internet but doing so I knocked down a Sisyphus statue I’d had for years and shattered it into pieces as I was cleaning it up hoped maybe there was a message somewhere in there from the universe.

hemmed in
this ghost-breeding state
snow shoes

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Written by: Joanna Delalande & Oscar Luparia

It's a beautiful early morning, immersed in a great silence. I open the window to let in the first rays of the September sun. Suddenly a strong breeze, like a harbinger of the coming fall, moves the trees. Summer is over, I tell myself, small signs announce the gentle passage of time, a new season is slowly setting in . . . Nature has its own rhythms, although in our life we are often between what was and what will be . . .

autumn wind
the light clothes
I’m still wearing

———
Prose: Joanna Delalande
Haiku: Oscar Luparia

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Written by: John Zheng

Tom wants April to cut a tad bit off the sides after she wraps the red cape around him and fastens the straps behind his neck. "Ok." The hair clipper hums gladly like a lawnmower. Twenty minutes later her masterpiece appears in the mirror. His crown looks like the front lawn he mowed. Frowning at the light stubble, Tom sighs, “Cut too short. It’s to be outgrown with weeds.” His wife pats his head like a tambourine.

whispers
the kiss blooms into
a kiss-me-not

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Written by: Joshua St. Claire

At the back of the cabinet: two glass bottles, a binky holder, four sippy cup lids, a high chair clip-on toy, three temperature-sensitive color-changing spoons, and a teether.

as if it never were morning mist