2025 Moon Viewing Haiku Contest Results
By Michael Dylan Welch
Moon Viewing Event 2025. Photo by Chie Iida.
The following are the winners from the 2025 Moon Viewing Haiku Contest held at the Seattle Japanese Garden on 5 and 6 September 2025 for its annual Moon Viewing Festival.
Judged by Michael Dylan Welch
pond ripples. . .
the moon tonight
seen by ancestors
Michael Dylan Welch
Forest-fire haze added tinges of red to the 2025 Moon Viewing Festival at the Seattle Japanese Garden, held on the two nights of September 5 and 6, 2025. Musical entertainment, art installations, tea services, and hundreds of lanterns around the garden filled both nights with wonder and magic. Garden visitors also had the opportunity to submit haiku in celebration of the moon. We received 125 entries on the first night, and 103 on the second night. The following are my selections and commentary on three top winning poems for each night, along with honorable mentions. The reward in these contests is the joy of experiencing the full moon, or at least imagining it rising over the trees, and then penning these poems. Another reward is sharing one’s haiku, whether your own for others to enjoy, or in reading poems that others wrote. These haiku remind us to savor the sight of the moon on any night of the year, whether crescent, gibbous, or full, and to savor its absence when hidden by clouds.
Saturday, 6 September 2025
First Place
a falling leaf
hides for a moment
a distant moon
Jameson Inrino (age 14)
This poem offers what may be an unintentional surprise. Is the leaf hiding somewhere? We may wonder that for an instant, but the falling leaf is hiding the moon. Haiku celebrate fleeting moments of perception, and this one is very fleeting indeed. By sharing the leaf and the moon together in a moment of seeming interaction, the poet makes us more deeply aware of both the leaf and the moon, and the changing season of autumn.
Second Place
smoke-filled sky—
a blood-orange moon
watches with a baleful eye
Paul Pietromonaco
Haiku most often don’t rhyme, but this one does, connecting the eye metaphor with the smokey sky. The moon is personified, and on a night when we are eager to see the full moon, it’s easy to project human feelings of balefulness onto the moon when it’s reddened by wildfire haze.
Third Place
moonless evening
but I sense its smile
atop its cloudy bed
Giffor Jones
It’s natural for us to imagine a moon smiling, shining its benevolent light on all of us, even if clouds have dimmed that light. Even amid clouds, no night is truly moonless after all, and a sensitive observer will feel that light.
Honorable Mentions
moon quiet but at the same time loud
we all have our differences
just like the moon
Anna, age 10
moon beams—
red-gold leaves crunch
beneath bare feet
Melissa Blouin
the couple smiles
red blanket yellow moon
ah . . . first date I think
Beth Daynes
hand in hand we walk
like the moon reflects the sun
I see me in you
Eric and Katya
a placid pond
a koto plucked
aglow in moonlight
Clare Lin
the full moon rises
and shines on my darkness
dispelling my fears
Dan Morrell
the moon lays quiet
in the sky, sharing
all our secrets
Graycen Rendel, age 8½
we changed the world—
now we watch the moon
through a smokey haze
Mike Ruby
red leaves first appearing
the moon watches
its reflection in the pond
Mike and Edith Ruby
bat acrobatics
to music—warm-up act
for the moon
Bob S.
where is the moonlight?
did the owl flying the night
cloak it in wonder?
Rodney B. Smith
moonlight on still pond—
koi glide through rippling silver
maples whisper fall
Nancy Weir
Friday, 5 September 2025
First Place
it’s spider season
we say, avoiding the webs
glinting in the moon
Ella Dorband
The star of this poem is the moon, even though it’s almost a secondary discovery after focusing on spider webs. This is the sort of misdirection that a good haiku uses to create subtlety and surprise. Yes, it’s that time of year, when spiders seem more prevalent, perhaps also bigger after a long summer season of growing in our gardens—or in our houses. But despite the spiders, or maybe because of them, thanks to their webs, we can enjoy the moon.
Second Place
shadows of the moon
hide in the foggy corners
of the night garden
Jari Preston
This poem is about light from the moon reaching the garden, whether it’s Seattle’s Japanese Garden or one’s garden at home. The moon is creating shadows where it can, dimmed by fog, and the poet has taken a moment to notice. Because the poet has noticed, those shadows aren’t hiding after all.
Third Place
now a third performance
at the moon festival—
kingfisher’s trill
Jacob Johnson
The kingfisher that flew about the pond on moon-viewing night added an unexpected delight for many garden visitors. We are left to wonder what the first two performances were, surely the moon itself and all of the evening’s musical performances. By withholding this information, the poem deftly leaves these details to our imaginations, thus engaging us in receiving the poem.
Honorable Mentions
autumn moon rises
the damp transports me elsewhere
though my feet remain
Kelsey Boyce
wind rustles the trees
yellow leaves fall
the silent moon
DJ
moon is hiding now
behind fire and smoke and haze
bright glow, we need you
Terry Goetz
smoky evening
wildfire haze
can’t dampen moon joy
Claire Keller-Scholz
rising again
the moon tells
we are alive
Kim Krempien
seen or unseen
the harvest moon hastens
summer’s fade to fall
Bill McGee
smoke obscures
the light of the moon
hearts still swell
Meredith McMahon
calm waters
leaves turning orange
moon in my veins
Leslie Ota
foggy full moon night
are you hiding a secret
tell us, tell us, please
Jari Preston
a long day’s work—
time for a bath
in the full moon’s glow
Alexander Romero
full moon sky
though I look up
the moon is playing peek-a-boo
Michiru Suzuki