THE HAIBUN GALLERY: 19th June 2025. Diana Webb - Guest Poet
- Kala Ramesh
- Jun 19
- 2 min read
Updated: Jun 19
host: Rupa Anand
mentor: Lorraine Haig editors on haikuKATHA: Shalini Pattabiraman, Vidya Shankar, Firdaus Parvez and Kala Ramesh Guest Poet: Diana Webb
A Thursday Feature
19th June 2025
IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT BELOW
THE HAIBUN GALLERY June 2025 - Diana Webb
Prompt 3rd week
PROMPTS for June 2025
Diana Webb
From Somewhere in the East
You need to read between the lines. She is seemingly asking him to make sure the freeze won't kill them. It's possible to make out the words "water" and "lilies". There's a smudge. A blot. Is she asking him to keep the kids away from the frozen pond? Is she then remembering lilies on a loved one's grave? Or is it something else? Maybe money. Or a frosty gap in communication.
floating world
when the mud thaws
things that surface
Diana Webb Frogpond 47: 3
Prompt
For me a prompt for a haibun can arrive suddenly and unexpectedly from anywhere. The above was sparked by hearing an item on the radio about a letter Claude Monet sent to his second wife Alice about taking care of the water-lilies at Giverny during a cold snap . So I transformed this snippet of news into a haibun about reading things in different lights with a range of possible meanings .
Write a haibun about a document of some kind, which depending on the way a reader interprets it, could have a range of possible meanings with the haiku at the end supplying a transformative perspective.
******** Diana,
Once again, a beautiful prompt and challenge. Looking forward to your month.
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Writers are invited to submit one unpublished haibun per submission window.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
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1-20 June, to be considered for publication in August Here's the link to the Google Form dedicated to this submission.
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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:
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…
#2---24June25 I Stand and Look at Them Long and Long
—Walt Whitman, Song of Myself, #32
morning news the same fire and fury as yesterday
I pull on my boots, step outside and hike beyond the hen house, the leaky spigot and compost pile, to the old pine at the edge of our lot. Shutting out the static, I lean against rough bark, watch the measured reveal of banded iron ore as dawn breaks over the mountain.
A quail trailing chicks emerges from the thistle patch, her top-feather bobbing, absurd and precise. No polls, no opinions, no hype. Just hunger and caution---the slow turn of the Earth.
a doe steps through the rusted-out fence. . .…
#1
Revised (thank you Lorraine)
An Endless Wait
I am relieved when the sun rises for then i too can rise – morning ablutions, chores, breakfast, the doorbell. A pile of laundry, lunch to be planned, bills to be paid, grocery shopping, daily messages to be sent and phone calls to make.
blue skies
imprisoned by the clouds
someday
Mohua Maulik, India
Original
An Endless Wait
I am relieved when the sun rises for then i too can rise – morning ablutions, chores, breakfast, the doorbell. A pile of laundry, lunch to be planned, bills to be paid, grocery shopping, daily messages to be sent and phone calls to make.
Dusk falls and suddenly it…
#1 Pending Status
The headline is brief, almost indifferent. A photograph shows a suitcase near the flap of a tent, a child’s hand gripping her mother’s coat. The thread below debates numbers, policies, blame—words stacked like sandbags against what’s already been swept away.
I scroll past, then return. I wonder what she’s left behind—perhaps the prayer mat still folded at the edge of the rug, the marigold seeds she meant to plant, a language that never fit well into forms or silence.
redacted lines
a windblown tarp lifts
to catch the moon Sandip Chauhan, USA feedback welcome
#1---20June25
Breath of Autumn
The dogs are still. The birds grow quiet, as if listening for what the escarpment wind carries—hiss of dust and seed, maybe an early frost.
Gingerly, I try on the gathering solitude, familiar now as the coat I’ve pulled from the back of your closet, the rhythmic bang of a bedroom shutter.
empty tire swing the worn treads deepened by moonlight
---Billie Dee New Mexico, USA
(feedback welcome)
---------- Please note: The narrative is lineated as tercets.
#1
A liminal space
The yellowing page has love and blessings scribbled all over. It was sent by daddy for my fiftieth birthday. I remember the astonishment on his wrinkled face. Really? half a century in the blink of an eyelid! There was a tremulous smile on his lips.
weight of words
a little more tilt
to the cursive
Later we go to the lake for celebrations. His deep eyes welled up as the sun went down.
on the undulating path arthritic feet
Arvinder Kaur
Chandigarh India
Feedback welcome 🙏