hosts: Shalini Pattabiraman, Vidya Shankar, Firdaus Parvez and Kala Ramesh
mentor: Lorraine Haig
A Thursday Feature
27th March 2025
IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT BELOW
THE HAIBUN GALLERY MARCH 2025 LORRAINE HAIG
Week 4
tired of this world . . .
suddenly moonlight
through my window
Ron C. Moss: The Bone Carver
This probably happens to most of us at some time or other, we become tired of this world. It might be because of stress, sadness, or exhaustion that we fall into bed at night. Maybe we can’t sleep. Suddenly for the poet the moon appears from behind a cloud and his darkness diminishes. The full moon is beautiful to behold, and one can imagine being transformed as it shines its light through the window.
Do you have coping mechanisms to deal with sadness in your life? What gets you through the day and puts a smile on your face? Write about a serendipitous event.
PLEASE NOTE:
1. Only two haibun per poet per prompt.
2. Share your best-polished pieces.
3. Please do not post something in a hurry or something you have just written.
Let it simmer for a while.
4. Post your final edited version on top of your original verse.
5. Don't forget to give feedback on others' poems.
Please Note: No haibun will be picked up from here for haikuKATHA, issue 43, May 2025. See the notice below for submission details. The workshopping will continue. The workshopping at the Haibun Gallery will continue to function the way it has been since November 2021.
Please read the Announcement completely, till the end :)) If you have doubts, write to us here, on this thread. Your ONE HAIBUN Submission can be from the haibun you have posted here.
Choose your best!
We nominate your poems for Contemporary Haibun Anthology brought out by Red Moon Press and Touchstone Haibun Contest. Help us to make this new format successful.
This is your home, to create any haibun you want and share with all our poets.
Have fun!
********
IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT from Kala: NOTICE
NOTICE
Dear Haibuneers
Starting from March 2025, we at haikuKATHA are moving on to a new submissions format for haibun submissions. (Only for haibun, please note!)
Writers are invited to submit one unpublished haibun per submission window.
Kindly note the submissions calendar.
1-20 March, to be considered for publication in May
1-20 June, to be considered for publication in August
1-20 September, to be considered for publication in November
1-20 December, to be considered for publication in February
All accepted submissions will receive an email to confirm their acceptance by the 5th day of the publication month.
Your unpublished (only one) haibun should be sent to: https://forms.gle/xUEiiDR9wd2dgqtR9 only during the submission period.
********
The Haibun Gallery continues as is.
We will be having editors and prompts, and your sharing…
Post #1
29.3.25
Wormhole
Nowadays afternoons are lazy. The days around the vernal equinox carry a sense of deja vu. The air is fragrant with a familiar scent of lavender blooms. Streets are lined with multicoloured flowers. For a moment I stop and feel as if nothing has changed. Days of childhood and youth blur my mind. I spread my dupatta and swirl it in the air. A few youngsters stare at me. ‘What on earth is a 60 year old doing behaving like this?’ their expressions seem to say.
“I too was young once ” I tell to their shocked faces.
spring drizzle
the washed fragrance
of frangipani
Mona Bedi
India
Feedback appreciated:)
#2
Immersion
I am letting go of all stress as I enter the woodland. There is a dense canopy of green above me. I hear the river rushing by. The birds are singing. My footsteps sink into the smooth earth of the tracks. A leaf floats past my face. I look up and can see the sun filtering through interlocked branches. There is no need for conversation. Nature has a soundtrack of accompaniment. There are patches of bluebells still holding onto yesterday’s rain. The glimmer sparks and dances within my eyeline. The garlic flowers too are pungent after the rainfall. The slopes are filled with their white petals. There is a snap of a twig and a deer…
Great prompt… food for thought!
#1
Revised (Thank you Alfred, Sandip and Lorraine)
An Obstacle Marathon
Nowadays, i am entangled in yarns of a different kind. And this isn’t about just knits and purls, there is yarn weight, gauge, and a host of abbreviations to boot.
Bumbling through, i knit scarves for everyone i can think of, but it gets a bit tedious. Perhaps a poncho for Mom. When she gives it her stamp of approval, I am unstoppable.
Emboldened, i turn to my next target – the husband.
A half-sweater with a cable design. After weeks of wrestling, it’s time to join the front panels with the back. Next the armhole borders and stitching of the sides and the masterpiece…
#1 Revised: thank you, Shalini. A Life in Suspension
The days blur into one another, filled with waiting and the soft hum of machines. My body feels distant, like a shell, while the world outside keeps moving. I see the trees swaying in the breeze, but I can’t feel the wind. My chest tightens, a thread pulling inward—one slow breath at a time. And then, in the space between breaths, I feel it—a shift, as if something far beyond me is stirring. It’s the smallest of things: a flicker in the ether, a momentary stillness that makes me wonder if, for a second, the world has paused just for me.
river of stars—
a gandharva’s song
thins into silence *gandharva (celestial musician)
Sandip…