haikaiTALKS: a saturday gathering! 6th December 2025 Billee Dee

haikaiTALKS: The Quiet Edges of Presence: a Winter Sabi Series|a saturday gathering under the banyan tree

A Disclaimer

Responsibility for the originality of the haikai rests solely with the submitting poet. 

If anyone feels that it is similar to another haikai, they are encouraged to contact the relevant poet directly.

Triveni Haikai India will take any action as recommended by the submitting poet.

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Special Guest Poet: Billie Dee

host: Srinivasa Sambangi 6th December 2025

haikaiTALKS: a saturday gathering under the banyan tree

December's Guest Poet: Billie Dee And she's helping us view Sabi from a fresh perspective!

haikaiTALKS 

The Quiet Edges of Presence: a Winter Sabi Series

Across hemispheres, winter is less a single season than a mood—a thinning of light, a sharpening of textures, a soft deceleration at the edges of our days. Whether cold or warm, wet or dry, winter is when presence becomes more audible in the small, unguarded moments: thresholds of identity, the residue of shared rooms, the grain of familiar tasks, and the slowed breath of living things.

Sabi is not about sorrow.  It is the felt texture of time brushing lightly against us. This new four-week cycle invites you into those subtle thresholds where nothing dramatic happens, yet everything is quietly revealed.

December 6 — Edges of Identity: Language, Ink, and the Unseen Hand

Presence often arrives where the “I” loosens—where perception overtakes identity, where the world completes something we began. Speech, shadow, and morning light each open a small door into that liminal zone.

im-mi-grant. . . the way English tastes on my tongue      — Chen-ou Liu

on the manuscript the shadow of a butterfly finishes the poem      — Nick Virgilio

the mirror when no one is looking first light      — Bill Kenney

PROMPT:  Find a moment today when you hover between roles or when something non-human lightly alters your task. Write a haiku where you are not the protagonist. Let the threshold reveal itself.

_()_ Namaste, Billee Dee

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“A Dictionary of Haiku Classified by Season Words with Traditional and Modern Methods,” by Jane Reichhold:

https://thehaikufoundation.org/omeka/files/original/7fb6654a1dfd1afef97369da920530f8.pdf

Indian subcontinent SAIJIKI:

https://www.trivenihaikai.in/indian-saijiki

The Five Hundred Essential Japanese Season Words:

http://www.2hweb.net/haikai/renku/500ESWd.html

The World Kigo Database:

https://wkdkigodatabase03.blogspot.com/

The Yuki Teikei Haiku Season Word List:

https://yths.org/season-word-list/

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Thanks, Billie. Your notes, the examples you have given and your prompt are so breathtakingly stunning. Thank you so much. I hope more poets try to see 'wabi' the way you have so superbly expressed.

Dear Members,

Waiting for your responses.

Please provide your feedback on others' commentary and poems as well. _()_

We are continuing haikaiTALKS in a grand manner!

Keep writing and commenting! _kala