THE HAIBUN GALLERY: 26th June 2025. Diana Webb - Guest Poet
- Kala Ramesh
- Jun 26
- 2 min read
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
26th June 2025
IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT BELOW
THE HAIBUN GALLERY June 2025 - Diana Webb
Prompt 4th week
PROMPTS for June 2025
Diana Webb
Beyond Wet
The rain fills the spaces between the houses. It hangs as a silken sheet and billows my sorrow .
Through it all the forsythia ablaze with yellow flowers, resplendent against the wet fence. Primroses have pushed through the mulch of bark. Heavy and damp, the daffodils are dancing.
sky on the road
the golden retriever
shaking rainbows
Florence Heyhoe haikuKATHA, May 2023
Prompt
It is perhaps a cliche to say that without tears there can be no rainbows but in the above haibun those three words 'billows my sorrow ' show the truth in that saying so beautifully . The suffering of a person can cause the beauty of nature to shine extraordinarily brightly in relief and even to dance before one's eyes as that allusion at the end of the prose to Wordsworth's well known poem suggests. The sails of a person's ship which takes them through waves of darkness and pain can suddenly billow with the beauty of all the colours of the spectrum shaken out in the sudden joy and hope of rainbows.
Write a haibun about how the miracles of nature have transformed a time of ills into a period of new epiphanies and joyful insights with the collaboration of the negativa with positiva becoming the via creativa culminating in the via transformativa. End with a haiku which not only transforms your paragraph of prose to a haibun but which shines out of the darkness as the touch of the magic wand which shows how transformation can occur.
******** 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Writers are invited to submit one unpublished haibun per submission window.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
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:
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 The Clearing
Some days the bones won’t obey and even the light on the curtains feels sharp enough to cut. The stillness after treatment is heavy and sweet, like syrup gone dark. After each round I sit longer tracing the same seam in the windowsill with my thumb. In the hedgerow, a spider spins a wheel wide enough to hold a dream. A pair of swallows dart through it without breaking a thread. The winter rot softens into compost. Even the moss on the stones begins to green. I peel an orange by the open window and watch the pulp catch fire in the sun.
mushroom ring
how many lives
in a fallen branch? Sandip Chauhan, USA feedback welcome
#2
Gembun
a sock hanging on a cable wire
wind blown
when you come home tonight
i won’t be there
Mohua Maulik, India
Feedback appreciated.
#1 Revised: thanks Lorraine Red Earth
After the swelling eases, I begin clearing the wardrobe. I pull down dresses I haven’t worn in years, blouses that no longer sit right across my ribs, garments that cling in places I can no longer feel. I work through the back folding cotton, silk and wool into neat stacks. In the jewelry box the chains curl into knots. I pack slowly, folding each piece flat as if that might keep it from recalling the shape I leave behind.
By noon the light shifts. I step out for air. A velvet mite moves across the brick, its back catching every fleck of sun.
plum blossom—
the scent of rain
in a broken jar Sandip Chauhan, USA ----------- Red…
Edit, thanks to Kala:
#2
Finding Mary Poppins
We have exhausted all words. Even the sky has turned to grey. Nothing left to say within the heart of a songbird. The staves echo with tin can repetitions, nothing has been solved here today.
raindrops low stars gathering around every doorway
We sit as two bookends cornering the remains of light. One opinion as valid as the other. Darkness cannot exist without light. Light cannot exist without darkness. How to separate the threads of weight in a lover’s quarrel.
just a hint of blue in the sky changing platforms
Joanna Ashwell
UK
Feedback welcome
#2
Finding Mary Poppins
We have exhausted…
#1
Revision:
What my fingers drum on the table
The black and white presence of the keyboard never betrays me. The floral gardens and ancient forests of my soul tether me to each sound: the softness of a cotton field, the sudden summer storm, the whispers of a hestitating waltz, a solemn prayer. I am the guardian of the secret yearnings composers slip into their written legacies, a messenger for the sound hidden in between their feverishly penned notes. A slight slowing down and a "good night" may become a "farewell", an "adieu". A longer breath between two phrases can conjure a moonlit field blooming with moon flowers before dawn. I borrow the harmonies from the wind, from the surge of…