THE HAIBUN GALLERY: 17th July 2025. Lorraine Haig - Guest Poet
- Kala Ramesh
- Jul 17
- 2 min read
host: Rupa Anand
mentor: Lorraine Haig editors on haikuKATHA: Shalini Pattabiraman, Vidya Shankar, Firdaus Parvez and Kala Ramesh
Guest Poet: Lorraine Haig
A Thursday Feature
17th July 2025
IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT BELOW
THE HAIBUN GALLERY July 2025: Lorraine Haig
Prompt
Week 3
The Peace of Wild Things
The Peace of Wild Things by Wendell Berry. Published by Penguin Books, 2018.
This poem was first published in his 1968 collection, Openings.
When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.
Wendell Berry composed this poem during the Vietnam War and after the assassinations of John F. Kennedy and Dr Martin Luther King. In today’s world we may feel something similar. Let’s face it, the news is grim and unrelenting.
Do you turn to poetry and find peace in words? Perhaps it’s music, meditation or a moonlit beach that you retreat to.
Challenge:
Write about something that brings you peace.
***
Thanks a lot, Lorraine.
Any amount of peace is not sufficient. We need more in today's world. Extremely interesting prompt.
Thank you so much.
_kala
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IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT 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Writers are invited to submit one unpublished haibun per submission window.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
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1-20 December, to be considered for publication in February
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The Google link will be given in this space soon. This form will open only during the submission period.
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The Haibun Gallery continues as is.
We will be having editors and prompts, and your sharing…
21/7/25
After the Headlines
moon fading
somewhere beyond
the city noise
When the world frays, when the news presses in like a heavy sky, I step out into the garden. Not much, not grand, no forest or lake, just wild corners where green things lean towards the earth’s slow breathing.
No broadcast reaches here. Only the quiet work of honeysuckle unspooling itself into the light, the slow ripening of tomatoes beneath the heavy leaves. I kneel to check the stems for blight, tip one fallen snail gently from its hiding place. A blackbird sings from the shed roof---not for me---but I listen, letting the sound stay with me a while.
Among roots and rain and small ordinary labours, the weight…
#1
Hide and Seek
It’s a summer morning and i am hiding in a corner, reading a book for the umpteenth time. But i am soon hauled away to attend an onion tea party in the lawns. My seven-year-old sister is our gracious hostess as she pours out the tea carefully into sky-blue cups and hands them out to me and the other guests – two dolls. I gulp the cold tea and vanish as soon as possible.
Once again she tracks me down. This time with an invitation for a picnic. She lures me with a battered black purse loaded with roasted chickpeas, jaggery and little homeopathy bottles filled with water. Giggling, we climb the tree that gives us…
#1---20July25: off-prompt; just an old memory
Arachnodactyly
.....suburban ravine
.....the distant howl
.....of coyotes
Spider-like, the vampire creeps across our black-and-white screen, as if a full moon
had animated grave dust, poured it into a long dark tunic. I’m eight, sitting
on the mohair couch beside my father. Tonight’s late show is Nosferatu, the original
silent horror film—grainy, lugubrious, mesmerizing. Daddy’s ghoulish chuckle
makes me feel chosen, a co-conspirator sharing forbidden delights.
As the credits roll, he says: “Show me you’re not too scared to watch spooky movies.”
Heart pounding, I slip out the door, reciting the Lord’s Prayer as I race around our house.
I’m careful to linger a few extra minutes on the back porch before popping back…
#1
Out of the dark
Nevis base camp
an accompanied toddler
adjusts his lace
July 1 2023
We arrive early to the foot; the carpark a bustle of slamming doors, rustled wet wear and crunched gravel as people carry out last minute checks before heading off across a steel bridge over rocky rapids.
between drystone walls
an echo of bleating sheep
through the mizzle
We start the ascent traversing through trees on a man made path. At intervals I pause as the rest of the group move on, only to stop a little further on to wait.
this battered body
feeling the early strain
a lone crow’s caw
A third of the way up I tell the group to carry…
Edit, thanks to Lorraine and Alfred:
#2
Sky Blooms
I have chosen the Flower of Life for the layout. This healing grid will harness the incoming cycle. Moonbeams spread across the cloth, dancing on an edge of crystal. Quartz, moonstone and lapis lazuli are laid within my reach. I hold each one, feeling where to place the stone. One of my angels goes in the heart, her wings outstretched to each flower. Amethyst chips are scattered on the petals. I carefully place larger pieces around the circles.
restoring order
to the universe…
my window stars
Joanna Ashwell
UK
Feedback welcome
#2
Sky Blooms
I have chosen the Flower of Life for…