HAIKU DIALOGUE – Rooms – Looking Out (1)

Rooms with Guest Editor Marietta McGregor

The month of July is about a room of one’s own, or someone else’s. Many of us spend more time within four walls than we do outside. We are born, die, sleep, eat, write, paint, sew, sing, converse, discourse, learn, worship and interact in enclosed spaces. Often we seek out or create these spaces because they provide creature comforts. Animals have rooms of their own. A bear seeks its den to hibernate. Wombats and rabbits dig to create burrows. Birds build nests. Virginia Woolf extolled the advantages of a private income and one’s own space. Rooms can be working sanctuaries, but if our enclosures become overly constricting or confining, we may feel the walls are ‛closing in’ on us, as many felt during pandemic lockdowns.

Below is Marietta’s selection of poems on the theme of Looking Out:

window ledge
looking out for her
mother’s cactus

Deborah Karl-Brandt
Bonn Germany

 

outside the window
and on the radio —
summer rain

Bakhtiyar Amini
Germany

 

marmalade cat
on the window sill
stealing the sun

Ann Rawson
UK

 

summer day . . .
the yellow of sunflowers
from the window

Rosa Maria Di Salvatore
Catania (Italy)

 

viewed
through a hag stone
imperfect night sky

Roberta Beach Jacobson
Indianola, Iowa, USA

 

frame of mind
my perception
of the world

Bonnie J Scherer
Alaska USA

 

new neighbours
peeping through
the lace-covered window

Olivier Schopfer
Geneva, Switzerland

 

window frames
my favorite art
summer woods

Ruth Happel
United States

 

urban blossoms —
opening the window
to a pink moon

Steliana Cristina Voicu
Ploiesti, Romania

 

night flight
my french words
out the window

marilyn ashbaugh
edwardsburg, michigan USA

 

hospital visit
outside the window
nurses smoking

Tuyet Van Do
Australia

 

looking at the scar
in the mirror—
a tear in my eye

Jovana Dragojlovic
Belgrade, Serbia

 

wild apricot
freedom
out my hospital window

Charles Harper
Yokohama

 

lightning-lit sky
the courage provided
by a window pane

Richard L. Matta
San Diego, California USA

 

a flash of lightning
on the window
a blue lizard

Teiichi Suzuki
Japan

 

basement laundry
she folds the shirt
he left behind

Cindy Putnam Guentherman
Illinois, USA

 

last session
my therapist
opens a window

Alvin Cruz
Philippines

 

cleaning the windows
you gazed out as a child
spring breeze

Tony Williams
Scotland, UK

 

moonlight . . .
some of the best
already gone

Luciana Moretto
Treviso Italy

 

window watching . . .
grandad’s hair turns
iridescent

Samo Kreutz
Ljubljana, Slovenia

 

inheritance
seeing the neighbors
through her binoculars

Sarah E. Metzler
Pennsylvania, USA

 

nursing home visit
on the windowsill remnants
of a summer day

Eva Limbach
Deutschland

 

bluejay ruckus —
looking for the hawk
at every window

Susan Burch
Hagerstown, MD

 

open window —
the summer drenched
song of a koel

Rupa Anand
New Delhi, India

 

art gallery
through the window
what nature made

Bryan Rickert
Belleville, Illinois

 

an evening cloud
lowering the blinds
on the window

Dejan Ivanovic
Lazarevac, Serbia

 

foglie di salvia . . .
il colore di pioggia
sul davanzale

sage leaves . . .
that rain colour
on the windowsill

Angiola Inglese
Italia

 

Wednesday morning
through the bedroom window
another world

Mark Meyer
Mercer Island WA USA

 

painted window —
in my dreams outside
a garden

Ana Drobot
Romania

 

through a wavy window the neighbor’s wave

Sharon Ferrante
Florida, USA

 

chicken pecking
outside the kitchen window
tomorrow’s dinner

Mike Gallagher
Ballyduff, County Kerry, Ireland

 

open window
the sounds of spring
I can not see

Bona M. Santos
Los Angeles, CA

 

a wintry day
the backyard cat’s gray face
pressed against the pane

Jackie Chou
United States

 

downsized
the window becomes
my new garden

Meera Rehm
UK

 

green tea
the sun trying to rise
above the buildings

Minal Sarosh
Ahmedabad, India

 

still lake waters for
the Prisoner of Chillon
dungeon with a view

Jenny Shepherd
London, UK

 

courtyard
a spider web
minus the spider

Margaret Mahony
Australia

 

jigsaw puzzle
sunshine and shadow
teasing my hillside view

Ingrid Baluchi
North Macedonia

 

chestnut tree . . .
a cat lies down
in its usual shade

Daniela Misso
Italy

 

treehouse
spotting the enemy attack
a mile off

Louise Hopewell
Australia

 

interior with window . . .
Matisse pulls the blue
from plein air

Laurie Greer
Washington, DC

 

childhood bedroom
my view of oak leaves
mid-tree

Cynthia Anderson
Yucca Valley, California

 

bombing . . .
an aroma of olive branches wafts
through the broken window

Tsanka Shishkova
Bulgaria

 

his solitude —
the shadow of summer
in the window

Mariangela Canzi
Italy

 

from the bus window
snapshots with my mind’s eye

Carol Reynolds
Australia

 

backyard birds
lining up by size
to bathe

Ruth Holzer
Herndon VA

 

summer dusk
a cruise ship in the harbor
slowly turning

Keiko Izawa
Japan

 

a lone figure
in the lamp-lit window
our evening stroll

Peggy Hale Bilbro
Alabama

 

from my cage
freedom
of bird chatter

Jan Stretch
Victoria Canada

 

new parking lot
instead of old linden trees
closed windows

novi parking
umjesto starih lipa
zatvoreni prozori

Zdenka Mlinar
Croatia

 

a crystal vase
on her window sill
shards of sunlight

Barrie Levine
Massachusetts, USA

 

ash gourd vine
takes over the trellis
where roses grew

Neena Singh
India

 

last time I saw you
out the window twirling
a look of pure joy

Sari Grandstaff
Saugerties, NY, USA

 

snow
on snow . . .
stir-crazy

Valentina Ranaldi-Adams
Fairlawn, Ohio USA

 

bullet train
all those vague things
behind the window

Chen Xiaoou
Kunming, China

 

rose hip tea . . .
pouring through the window
summer sunset

Lori Kiefer
London UK

 

delayed monsoon
the crow on the fig branch
sunbathing

Dipankar Dasgupta
Kolkata, India

 

cacophony
of the neighbours
I feel at home . . .

Priti Khullar
India

 

puberty
glimpsing neighbor’s wife
through closed window

Margie Gustafson
United States

 

tree trunk hideaway she dreams deeper hollows

Colette Kern
Southold US

 

solarium garden view
the bronze Pan smiles
playing his flute

Rita Melissano
Illinois, USA

 

taillights blurring
to the plinks of rain
attic haiku

Ann Sullivan
Massachusetts USA

 

distant clouds
the window’s reflection
on a phone screen

Richard Straw
Cary, North Carolina

 

fern shadows the waiting room window

C.X.Turner
UK

 

window
mountain view
shuttered

Richard Bailly
Fargo, ND, USA

 

peering out,
the nest is
. . . empty

Alan Harvey
Tacoma, WA

 

again this sparrow
peering in my window
whistling as I dress

Margaret Tau
New Bern, North Carolina

 

attic bedroom
on my watch treetops
in the wind

Kathabela Wilson
USA

 

hospice bed
her view towards
the river bend

Maurice Nevile
Canberra, Australia

 

turning
to follow the sun
windowsill parsley

Sue Courtney
Orewa, New Zealand

 

morning runners
up with the sun
dream of Boston

Sigrid Saradunn
Bar Harbor, Maine

 

Godzilla lurks
the tallest tree transformed
by kudzu vines

kris moon kondo
Kiyokawa, Kanagawa, Japan

 

looking up
through the curtain lace
bits of blue sky

Debbie Scheving
United States

 

bedridden
a grasshopper jumping
out of the window

Florin C. Ciobica
Romania

 

the garden fades
to my face in the glass
approaching night

Keith Evetts
Thames Ditton, UK

Join us next week for Marietta’s commentary on additional poems, & our next prompt…

Guest editor Marietta McGregor is a fourth-generation Tasmanian who has made her home between Australia’s national capital Canberra and the scenic south coast of New South Wales for over four decades. A lover of the natural world since childhood, she went on to study botany and zoology, and has worked as palynologist, garden designer, science journalist, editor, university tutor, education manager, and grants developer for the national wildlife collection. A photography and travel enthusiast since retiring, she enjoys capturing fine detail of fleeting moments. She came late to haiku, which appealed for its close observation and poetic expression of ephemeral experience. Her haiku, haibun and haiga have been widely published, have won awards and appear in anthologies.

Lori Zajkowski is the Post Manager for Haiku Dialogue. A novice haiku poet, she lives in New York City.

Managing Editor Katherine Munro lives in Whitehorse, Yukon Territory, and publishes under the name kjmunro. She is Membership Secretary for Haiku Canada, and her debut poetry collection is contractions (Red Moon Press, 2019). Find her at: kjmunro1560.wordpress.com.

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