HAIKU DIALOGUE – Wanderlust – Staying Home – long list

Wanderlust with Guest Editor Marietta McGregor

Toddlers live in the present. Family forms the boundaries of their small world. It’s only as we grow up that we start to dream and plan to be somewhere else, to experience something new. Many writers have woven narratives around their travels. Hans Christian Andersen believed that to travel is to live. Aesop maintained that adventure is worthwhile. Do you have favourite travel tales you trot out to family and friends? I certainly do. They tell me they enjoy them, but I wonder if they’re just being polite. Travel is personal, after all. It’s what you alone see and how it makes you feel. Call it wanderlust or what you will, the urge to experience something new and different has long captured our imaginations. I’d like our first prompt to be about real-life journeys as you coddiwomple along, enjoying the trip while perhaps not knowing the destination. Prompt 2 will relate more to how we travel in our minds, whether it’s to the past, the future, or to some fictional realm we conjure up that feels very real.

Below is Marietta’s selection of poems on the topic of Staying home:

This week, you’ve taken me on remarkable journeys, both real and imaginary. Through your inner travels you’ve shared past and future hopes and experiences, quite a few imbued with poignant memories of a person, time or place dear to you. Together we’ve been to the stars, moon and back, shared wine by the sea, visited old friends and taken airplanes, flying carpets, trains and rockets to faraway places. Special possessions triggered fond memories. We’ve enjoyed beloved books, the comfort of staying home and our family ties. My grateful thanks to everyone who contributed to Haiku Dialogue — “Wanderlust”.

every word
of that farewell letter
lavender scent

Barbara Anna Gaiardoni
Verona, Italy

 

Zen retreat
that part of myself
beyond myself

Stephen A Peters
Bellingham, WA

 

winter morning
in the warm living room
flip-flops on my feet

Slobodan Pupovac
Zagreb, Croatia

 

travel guide
spending the lunch break
far from here

Marie Derley
Ath, Belgium

 

Pompeii chapter—
a hollow in the plaster
the size of a kiss

Sandip Chauhan
USA

 

I follow the Mississippi River
to Preservation Hall—
jazz odyssey

Anne Curran
Hamilton, New Zealand

 

I’m in bed, but hope
wind blows open my window:
Tink’ll help me fly!

Lorraine Schein
Sunnyside, Queens, NYC

 

Kilimanjaro—
seeking the footsteps
of Hemingway

Alan Harvey
Tacoma, WA

 

astrocartography—
a winter mosquito
circles the globe

marilyn ashbaugh
edwardsburg, michigan, USA

 

riding
a blue wave
I dream I can fly

Belinda Behne
Clinton, CT

 

cotton grass tufts
my flying carpet to
the arctic circle

Regine Beckmann
North Germany

 

my 5-year-old self
runs away to the woods
middle child

Ann Sullivan
Arlington MA USA

 

Lascaux cave hand stencils
our ring fingers
the same

Caroline Giles Banks
Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA

 

the narrow path
constantly leading me
to the fridge

Curt Linderman
Seattle, Washington

 

folding travel brochures
in and out
of a reverie

Millicent Bee
Richmond, VA

 

too old to travel—
my mind wanders
with Google Earth

Sam Bateman
Everett, WA

 

riding at a gallop
high on moorland
escaping valley cloud

Ann Rawson
Scotland UK

 

Basho’s hut . . .
listening to the rain
on banana leaves

Sanjana Zorinc
Croatia

 

old postcard—
my finger smoothing
the sea’s edge

Artur Zieliński
Poland

 

physical limits
never truly alone with
literary friends

Veronica Hosking
Avondale, AZ

 

station — museum
still I travel on
traveling, traveling

Dejan Ivanovic
Lazarevac, Serbia

 

somniloquy
even in sleep i mumble
about paris

(Somniloquy: Talking in one’s sleep)

Jahnavi Gogoi
Ajax, Ontario, Canada

 

beside the creek
homesickness
drifts downstream

Rebeca Thomas
Youngtown, Arizona

 

rocket engines
aimed at the moon—
his bunkbed launch pad

Barrie Levine
USA

 

reading Rapunzel
I let my long hair down
the attic window

Jackie Chou
Pico Rivera, California

 

winter evening—
a trip to the moon
from east to west

sera d’inverno—
un viaggio con la luna
da est a ovest—

angiola inglese
Italia

 

at eighty
remembering Paris
the ache in my heart

Robert Bruntil
Bellingham, WA USA

 

bedridden—
flipping through photo albums
trips revived

Paul Callus
Ħal Safi, Malta

 

family photos
the island
I’ll never return to

Stephen A. Allen
Saint Joseph, MI, USA

 

old t-shirt
still recalling
the big five

Charles Harper
Yokohama

 

postcard—
wishing I wasn’t
here

Tim Chamberlain
Tokyo, Japan

 

summer holidays
the library book
returns with sand

Neena Singh
India

 

the world fades away
and yet I travel so far
without moving on

Rosa Maria Di Salvatore
Catania (Italy)

 

work chaos—
stitching my spirit
in Rivendell

Santhoshivalli G S
India

 

old photo album
not recognising
the daredevil in my smile

Louise Hopewell
Australia

 

bedside books
tumbling
into time-travel

Kavita Ratna
India

 

time in a bottle
the disproportion
of single malt

Michael Henry Lee
Mordor

 

dreaming of Fujisan . . .
on my tea mirror
cherry lights

Steliana Cristina Voicu
Ploiesti, Romania

 

afternoon rest
taste of wine
chilled in the sea

Anica Marcelic
Zapresic, Croatia

 

lamplight
at the turn of a page
a train whistle

Samo Kreutz
Ljubljana, Slovenia

 

Gen-Z
her wish to transmigrate
into fan-fiction

Deborah Karl-Brandt
Germany

 

birthday bash
travelling back
to the eighties

Amoolya Kamalnath
India

 

ancestor dreams
filling the family home
an embrace of mist

John Hawkhead
UK

 

staycation
the lumpy bed
I know

Bryan Rickert
Belleville, Illinois

 

red rhododendrons
a butterfly takes me back
to the hills of Nepal

(Rhododendron is the national flower of Nepal.)

Meera Rehm
UK

 

star gazing
my detour to age six
on dad’s shoulder

Swasti Devarshi
India

 

back in time
on the old lady’s knees
an open album

Mirela Brailean
Iasi, Romania

 

school atlas—
around the world
in eighty pages

thomas david
United Kingdom

 

a virtual trip
to southern France
homemade bouillabaisse

Olivier Schopfer
Geneva, Switzerland

 

gran’s treasure box
rings, bracelets, and
ribboned postcards

Maxianne Berger
Outremont, Quebec

 

my landlocked body
back at the beach again . . .
seashells

Tracy Davidson
Warwickshire, UK

 

mum’s tea
she doesn’t need to say
welcome home

Baisali Chatterjee Dutt
India

 

stargazing
a celestial hitchhiker
with the Crux

Marilyn Humbert
Sydney Australia

 

looking out
a classroom window
my future beckons

Eavonka Ettinger
Long Beach, CA

 

Masai Mara trip—
watching the lion’s yawn
in my tabby

Vaishnavi Ramaswamy
Chennai, India

 

childhood reading
the scent of fresh milk
from Alpine goats

Keiko Izawa
Japan

 

removed
from my bucket list
star map

Peggy Hale Bilbro
Alabama

 

sleep story
a trail ride
under the moon

Margaret Anderson
Vancouver, BC

 

his wheelchair
an old road map sticks out
of a pocket

Urszula Marciniak
Poland

 

Amalfi Coast
our diet dissolves
in limoncello

Arvinder Kaur
Chandigarh, India

 

exploring granny’s
chinaware cabinet
a pikachu plushie

Anthony Rabang
Philippines

 

Cape Town attractions
page fifteen
in my geography textbook

Vidya Shankar
Chennai, India

 

head trip
hitting every state
of mind

Wendy Cobourne
Florida, USA

 

stuck in time
the distance I cover
to father’s grave

Sheikha A.
United Arab Emirates

 

staring at the pictures
on the wall . . .
no going back

Luciana Moretto
Italy

 

stone steps
to the shrine
yesterday again

Scott Smithline
New Zealand

 

narrow road
the monk in me
talks with Bashō

Milan Rajkumar
Imphal, India

 

“one small step . . .”
my tortoise asleep
beneath the moon

Helen Buckingham
Wells, Somerset, UK

 

migratory birds—
once again I postpone
my departure

Dan C. Iulian
Romania

 

travel book group
we put more fiction
on the itinerary

Laurie Greer
Washington, DC

 

memory—
I follow the lines
in mom’s hand

Federico C. Peralta
Bulacan, Philippines

 

mind tripping—
across Transylvania
to Kalamazoo

Mark Meyer
Mercer Island, WA USA

 

childhood library
those afternoon trips
to neverland

Lori Kiefer
UK

 

recognizing the places
I’ve never been—
recurring dreams

Nancy Brady
Huron, Ohio

 

staycation scenes
rediscovering ourselves
in retirement spaces

Sherrod Taylor
Prairie Village, KS

 

all day Saturday
saved for a reading day
pray for rain

Ron Scully
United States

 

earth landing
after the flying dream
bed-bound

Anne Fox
Broomes Island, MD USA

 

wrinkled hands
a whole new landscape
to explore

Christa Pandey
Austin, TX, USA

 

migrating house wren
where will I live out
the rest of my life

Cynthia Anderson
Yucca Valley, California

 

homebound—
the leaves change color
on Facebook

Bryan Sharpe
United States

 

that same place
in my dreams—
ever-to-be-touched?

Marjan Sabouri
Iran – Greece

 

NASA is
streaming live . . .
armchair astronaut

Valentina Ranaldi-Adams
Fairlawn, Ohio USA

 

trip to my homeland
and my childhood friend
. . . the years fell away

Margaret Mahony
Australia

 

gym morning
climbing on the treadmill
the mountains of Crete

Ruth Holzer
Potomac Falls, VA

 

quaint hotel in Nice—
from the window Madam
tosses down my panties

Colette Kern
Southold NY

 

what could have been minefield

Susan Burch
Hagerstown, MD

 

old scrapbook
closing my eyes
for a missed kiss

Soumya Mukherjee
Jersey City, NJ

 

notes of flute
pulling my thoughts
over the mountain

Minal Sarosh
Ahmedabad, India

 

fog on the lagoon—
a galleon rises
to the sky

Elisabetta Castagnoli
Italy

 

travelling to Mars
and the moon
November rooftop

Rupa Anand
New Delhi, India

 

evening rose—
I set off for the planet
of the Little Prince

Stoianka Boianova
Bulgaria

 

drifting off
by an open window . . .
the gentle caress of ghosts

Tony Williams
Scotland, UK

 

trudging along
that narrow road—
autumn wind

Arrigo Bassi
Switzerland

 

ancient cities unravelling the silk road

Melissa Dennison
UK

 

old book of hokku
someone else’s journeys
have become my own

Richard Straw
Cary, North Carolina

 

pyre smoke—
I travel with dad
beyond the stars

Mona Bedi
Delhi, India

 

sapphire blue sea
an oar in hand
to Kirrin island

Shalini Gupta
India

 

cigarette smoke
a memory of sitting
on my father’s lap

AJ Johnson
Stephens City, VA USA

 

morning mist . . .
in father’s footsteps
immersing his ashes

(Dedicated to my father, Mr. Banarsi Dass Kakkar [September 25, 1939 – September 19, 2026])

Monica Kakkar
India and United States of America

 

lucky day
I perfect my backbend
as if to kiss the Blarney Stone

Margaret Tau
New Bern, North Carolina

 

her stories alive—
I’m in her Egyptian bathtub
sucking a mango

Kathabela Wilson
Pasadena, California

 

travel Buddhist style
wherever you go
there you are

Margie Gustafson
Lombard, IL USA

 

winter cleaning
a bit of a sandcastle
in my shoe

Hynek Koziol
Czechia

 

40th anniversary
awash in memories
old country roses

Katie Montagna
Ireland

 

I write haiku
rather than postcards
travel envy

Jenny Shepherd
London, UK

 

Shiki’s reach
beyond his window
the next bud to arrive

Lorraine A Padden
San Diego, CA USA

 

hotel notepaper
an old crease across
a new poem

C.X. Turner
U.K.

 

visiting Monk’s House—
now she talks to me
in her novels

Cristina Povero
Italy

 

lockdown travel
my new BFF
Rick Steves

Jonathan Epstein
USA

 

spray on my face
from the whale’s splash . . . watching
a video

madeleine kavanagh
California, USA

 

two thousand miles
wishing for time travel
new born great-grandbaby

Sigrid Saradunn
Bar Harbor Maine

 

the aroma of tea
I start my journey
to Lilliput

Sangita Kalarickal
United States

 

midsummer rain—
I wander back
to my childhood forest

Hifsa Ashraf
Pakistan

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

Bios:

Guest editor Marietta McGregor is a retired Tasmanian botanist and journalist who has made her home between 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 biological sciences, and has worked as palynologist, garden designer, science journalist, editor, university tutor, education manager, and grants developer for the national wildlife collection. Her haiku, haibun and haiga have been widely published, have won awards and appear in anthologies.

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

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Banner Photo & Prompt Photo credits: Marietta McGregor

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.