The following poem appeared in Kō 40:4, Autumn–Winter 2025, page 9, and was selected for commentary in the subsequent issue, 40:10, Spring–Summer 2026, page 41.
dying summer
the end of the lake
lost in haze
—Michael Dylan Welch
Here are two images (“end of summer” and “haze on the lake”) perfectly juxtapositioned, and it has to be in a masterly written haiku. The summer has come to its end. The haze on the lake announces the coming of autumn days. The picture painting in this haiku like Buson’s landscape is a delicate description of melancholy, soft as the touch of the haze which brings the change of the seasons, approaching into humans’ life, into Nature and affecting the sensitive poet’s soul.
—Nina Kovačić