Return to Japan
​by Randy Brooks

​Hotel Pastoral . . .
Tokyo skyscrapers poking
through spring mist

•

stepping stones
to the garden tea house . . . 
pockets of morning rain

•

​rice planting song
I clear my throat
during the applause

Nikko shrine
without masks the visitors
are monkeys

•

mountain stream 
sensei totters on exposed roots
of an ancient tree

•

​guardians
of the castle keep
wisteria bees

family kites
over the castle grounds
an ancient lullaby

•

hilltop shrine
a hototogisu offers
forgiveness

my haiku friend’s
memorial stone kanji
feeling the sunshine

•

a deep bow
she shows me the postcard
Shiki sent her father

•

room at the ryokan
dawn crows calling faintly
a dream

Dr. Randy Brooks is Professor of English Emeritus at Millikin University in Decatur, Illinois, where he teaches courses on haiku and Japanese poetics. He and his wife, Shirley Brooks, are publishers of Brooks Books <brooksbookshaiku.com/> and co-editors of Mayfly haiku magazine. His most recent books include Walking the Fence: Selected Tanka and The Art of Reading and Writing Haiku: A Reader Response Approach.

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