HAIKU DIALOGUE – Sanctuary of the Senses – Touch and/or Taste – long list

Sanctuary of the Senses with Guest Editor Carole MacRury

As haiku poets, we are familiar with being out in nature, living in the present moment awake to all sensory input, sight, sound, scent, touch, and taste. Sensory experiences can regulate the nervous system and support physical and mental health. Sensory practices and rituals can strengthen mind-body connections and regulate hormones to ease anxiety. I, myself, found ways to utilize the senses to remove debilitating anxiety attacks in my youth. Today, children identified as having sensory sensitivities receive treatment early on to help them process what can be overwhelming or underwhelming sensory responses. My own grandchild successfully underwent sensory processing treatment as a toddler.

A sanctuary is a place of refuge that offers safety and respite from the stresses of our lives, be it within our own homes, a bird sanctuary, a holy place, or at the kitchen table of a dear friend. A sanctuary is personal to each of us. We bring to these sanctuaries our senses whether it is our favorite color, a hot bath, a massage, favorite music, a cup of warm tea, or a hug from a loved one. Our ways and means are endless and unique. Our two prompts will invite you to discover the ways you create your own sanctuary of the senses to cope with the daily stresses of life and to enhance your own well-being.

Below is Carole’s selection of poems on the topic of Touch and/or Taste:

end of a hard day’s work
in my hot bath
a feeling of weightlessness

Olivier Schopfer
Geneva, Switzerland

 

empty wheelchair…
on the warm horse’s back –
the joy of walking

Ivan Georgiev
Germany

 

closing my eyes
June’s warm-to-the-skin touch
of the Peace Rose

Kathleen Cain
Arvada, CO USA

 

burying bulbs
ranunculus rolls
off the tongue

Kanjini Devi
The Far North, Aotearoa NZ

 

the sweet, sticky warmth
of a bowl of rice pudding –
winter darkness

Anne Curran
Hamilton, New Zealand

 

touching me
without touching me
sea breeze

thomas david
United Kingdom

 

the burnt finger my son kissed

Nitu Yumnam
UAE

 

laying on of hands—
a tree
heals me

Wendy Cobourne
Homestead FL

 

forgetting my worries
I enjoy the first
wild strawberries

Helga Stania
Switzerland

 

squash blossom fritters
I wear grandma’s apron
to make them better

Anne Fox
Broomes Island, MD USA

 

Mother’s embrace
I still wrap myself
in the last thing she knitted

Tracy Davidson
Warwickshire, UK

 

the bartender’s smile
tickling the senses
champagne bubbles

Marilyn Humbert
Sydney, Australia

 

pottery studio
with each turn of the earth
the gift of sanctuary

Martin Miles-Moore
North west England

 

newborn leaves
soft enough
to quiet my anger

Fatma Zohra Habis
Algeria

 

touching without touch
inhaling
her exhalations

Mike Fainzilber
Tel Aviv, Israel

 

touch down
a taste of life
somewhere else

Carol Reynolds
Australia

 

decades after the war
she does not part with
the blue penguin

Anica Marcelic
Zapresic, Croatia

 

a damp refuge
nothing beats the fun
of a corn husk hut

Dejan Ivanovic
Lazarevac, Serbia

 

ballet recital
a child calms herself
twirling her long curls

Cindy Putnam Guentherman
IL, USA

 

chocolate candy
the warmth of your cardigan
over the shoulders

cioccolatino –
il calore del tuo cardigan
sopra le spalle

angiola inglese
Italia

 

saucing me up
St Louis barbecue

Roberta Beach Jacobson
Indianola, IA, USA

 

midnight snack
bliss found in slice of
key lime pie

Stephen J. DeGuire
Los Angeles, CA

 

DIY card
every fold
a warm smile

Jagajit Salam
Imphal, India

 

clamped cord —
a newborn grasps my finger
to his lips

Vaishnavi Ramaswamy
India

 

evening walk—
the ​gentle clasp
of papa’s hand

Neena Singh
India

 

my masseuse
our friendship built on years
of touch and talk

Jenny Shepherd
London, UK

 

dripping ice cream —
a toothless smile
in summer heat

Sathya Venkatesh
Coimbatore, India

 

poetry performance
at a nursing home
tears of joy

Zdenka Mlinar
Hrvatska

 

taste of cherries…
grandma’s warm hands
a gift of love

Silvana Medač
Hrvatska

 

downstream
the waves that play with you
play with me

Arvinder Kaur
Chandigarh, India

 

steaming the water
I weave myself
within cacao fields

Joanna Ashwell
UK

 

ice moon
I dream of
mom’s hot garlic soup

Padma Rajeswari
Mumbai, India

 

clearing a misdiagnosis
a touch of the doctor’s hand
on my back

Tuyet Van Do
Australia

 

worn blanket
dragging and hiding
my comfort space

Joanna Ashwell
UK

 

high fever —
my mother’s hand
on my forehead

Stoianka Boianova
Bulgaria

 

a cup of herbal tea –
high in the mountains –
meditation

Minko Tanev
Bulgaria

 

years of friendship
in our shared
cups of tea

Margaret Mahony
Australia

 

left food
for the sanctuary
a falling star

Zoltan Pachnik
Hungary

 

melting mood
the buttons of his jacket
as he clasped me

Luciana Moretto
Italy

 

gentle breeze
an invisible
hug

Dorna Hainds
Michigan, USA

 

under cherry blossoms
holding close
a girl within me

Sanjana Zorinc
Croatia

 

bird songs…
swallowing down the bile
of emptiness

Raji Vijayaraghavan
India

 

newly orphaned
scooping into a tub
of rocky road ice cream

Ruth Holzer
Potomac Falls, VA

 

winter sun
the solace taken
from a cuppa

Steve Bahr
Roseburg, Oregon

 

the chain-stitch heart
beneath the crisp pinafore…
mother’s Raggedy hug

Laurie Greer
Washington, DC

 

injured shoulder . . .
the warmth of a cape
knitted for me

Keiko Izawa
Japan

 

pinot noir
the darkening taste
of my grief

Barrie Levine
Massachusetts, USA

 

hiding under the table
gripping its chenille cloth
a war child

Ann Rawson
Scotland, UK

 

smooth silver
warms in my palm
grandpa’s pocket watch

Gavin Austin
Sydney, Australia

 

weightless
afloat beneath a starry sky
alone

Mary Beth Defer
California

 

petting her soft fur
I activate
the purring machine

madeleine kavanagh
USA

 

no reason why not
spending all day
in pajama pants

Cynthia Anderson
Yucca Valley, California

 

railway busker
checking my pockets
for coins

Lori Kiefer
U.K.

 

the passing year
dad’s corduroy jacket
on my bent back

Richard Straw
Cary, North Carolina

 

she says
I’m alone most of the time
lingering hug

John S Green
Bellingham, Washington

 

love song
our fingers retrace
every groove

Jenn Ryan-Jauregui
Tucson Arizona USA

 

finally barefoot!
little piglets squealing
with delight

Curt Linderman
Seattle

 

slow sipping
after a hot soak
coffee milk

(In Japan, after soaking in an onsen or sento, people often drink a small bottle of kohi gyunyu or “coffee milk.”)

Stephen J. DeGuire
Los Angeles, CA

 

the cool weight
of 300 ply
I am a pharaoh

Morgan Ophir
Sydney, Australia

 

exam stress
the soothing feel
of grandma’s ooti

(Ooti: a porridge-like traditional Manipuri comfort dish.)

Subir Ningthouja
Imphal, India

 

silken folds of
my sister’s scarf
perfumed with love

Margaret Ponting
Australia

 

empty church —
angels touch the keys
of the organ

Ivan Ivančan
Zagreb, Croatia

 

suddenly the touch
of a forgotten friend…
petals in the wind

Cezar Ciobica Sr.
Romania

 

colder fingers
every December
Dad’s bear blanket

Bruce Feingold
Berkeley, CA USA

 

peach ice-cream
melts on my tongue …
each time the first time

Annie Wilson
Shropshire, UK

 

the coldness of a stone
placed in my palm—
February thaw

Kerry J Heckman
Seattle, WA

 

thunderstorm —
finding the familiar
shape of your skull

Margaret Anderson
Vancouver, BC

 

a fantail steady
on my walking stick
so much to say

Scott Smithline
New Zealand

 

satiny paw
touches my calloused hand
first guide dog

Vicki Vogt
Watertown, MA USA

 

honey on the tongue longer than needed

C.X. Turner
U.K.

 

freshy laundered sheets –
softly becoming
part of the fabric

Cristina Povero
Italy

 

tasting the air I trust my lizard brain

Helen Buckingham
United Kingdom

 

the slow opening of December clementines

Adele Gallogly
Hamilton, Ontario, Canada

 

covid 19 lockdown
the loving softness
of your pajama

Boryana Boteva
Sofia, Bulgaria

 

dementia
the forgotten taste
of relationships

Mona Bedi
Delhi, India

 

full moon night-
a stray pup whimpers
to my touch

Nisha Raviprasad
India

 

nettles
along the path
our dinner

Barbara Anna Gaiardoni
Verona – Italy

 

fall’s reddening leaves:
I shake smoked paprika in
my soup for flavor

Lorraine Schein
Sunnyside, Queens, NYC

 

tickling my chin
the buttercup’s
playful question

Caroline Ridley-Duff
UK

 

fingertips –
checking a lucky
pebble in his pocket

Tim Chamberlain
Tokyo, Japan

 

fists of cherry buds open
when was the last time
we held hands

Sonam Chhoki
Thimphu, Bhutan

 

old cawl recipe—
mam’s warm cwtch
in the steam

Adele Evershed
Wilton, CT

 

her shining silk attire
the warmth of a hug
in the glow of my dream

Lakshman Bulusu
Princeton NJ, USA

 

shaking off
my fever coat
cat’s hearth

C.R. Harper
United States

 

Raging fever
a cool lick
a paw in my hair

Sudha Devi Nayak
Bhubaneswar India

 

mom’s butterfly
walker bag by our bed
brush of her wings

Kathabela Wilson
USA

 

this new brand
of cottage cheese ––
blintzes just like Mother’s

Sheila Sondik
Bellingham, WA

 

back from holiday
a pink oleander flower
between my fingers

Daniela Misso
Italy

 

salty sea spray —
barefoot on wet pebbles
returning with the tide

Goda Virginija Bendoraitienė
Lithuania

 

pussywillows . . .
the soft insistence
of a cat’s paw

marilyn ashbaugh
Edwardsburg, Michigan

 

freshly mowed lawn
the first taste of summer
in the beer

Biswajit Mishra
Canada

 

your hand
holding mine –
all in bloom

Ana Drobot
Romania

 

tea with turmeric
banishing the blues . . .
snow in spring

(All spring season word; kigo 季語: spring snow [usually large snowflakes]; snow in spring; harunoyuki, haru no yuki 春の雪 [はるのゆき] or spring snow; shunsetsu 春雪 [しゅんせつ]. Seasonless topic; muki 無季: tea; tea plant [Camellia sinensis]; tea preparation; making tea; cha 茶 [ちゃ])

Monica Kakkar
India and United States of America

 

weltschmerz
on pause
cat snuggle

Jonathan Epstein
USA

 

taste of salt
on her skin —
night crickets

Tomislav Maretić
Zagreb, Croatia

 

snow-filled walk
the heat
of our kiss

Valentina Ranaldi-Adams
Fairlawn, Ohio USA

Join us next week for Carole’s commentary on additional poems…

Bios:

Guest Editor Carole MacRury resides in Point Roberts, Washington, a unique peninsula and border town that inspires her work. Her poems have won awards and been published worldwide, and her photographs have been featured on the covers of numerous poetry journals and anthologies. Her practice of contemplative photography along with an appreciation of haiku aesthetics helps deepen her awareness of the world around her. Both image and written word open her to the interconnectedness of all things, to surprise, mystery and a sense of wonder. She is the author of In the Company of Crows: Haiku and Tanka Between the Tides (Black Cat Press, 2008, 2nd Printing, 2018) and The Tang of Nasturtiums, an award-winning e-chapbook (Snapshot Press 2012).

Assistant Editor Lafcadio, a former teacher, now works from home writing, editing and proofreading study guides for nursing textbooks. She lives in Tennessee. She has written poetry for a long time but a couple of years ago fell in love with Japanese micropoetry and hasn’t looked back. Lafcadio has been published in a number of journals and anthologies. She writes under the nom de plume of Lafcadio because nom de plume is so fun to say. You can read her poems on Twitter (X) @lafcadiopoetry or BlueSky @lafcadiobsky.

Assistant Editor Vandana Parashar is an associate editor of haikuKATHA and one of the editors of Poetry Pea and #FemkuMag. Her debut e-chapbook, I Am, was published by Title IX Press (now Moth Orchid Press) in 2019 and her second chapbook Alone, I Am Not, was published by Velvet Dusk Publishing in April 2022.

Lori Zajkowski is the Post Manager for Haiku Dialogue. She lives in New York City and enjoys reading and writing haiku.

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

Portrait by Laurel Parry

THF strives to maintain a safe and friendly environment for our readers and site participants. Participation in our offerings assumes respectful and appropriate behavior of all parties. We reserve the right to refuse service to anyone, for any reason, at any time.

If you see something you feel may violate our Code of Conduct, please report it to the appropriate moderator or the President here.

Please note that all poems & images appearing in Haiku Dialogue may not be used elsewhere without express permission – copyright is retained by the creators. Please see our Copyright Policies.

Photo Credits:

Banner Photo credit:  Carole MacRury

Haiku Dialogue offers a triweekly prompt for practicing your haiku. Posts appear each Wednesday with a prompt or a selection of poems from a previous week.  Read past Haiku Dialogue posts here.