Haiku for Healing

Haiku for Healing – Haiga as a Healing Practice

Week 3 photo prompt

The week 3 photo prompt features the work of the well-known haiga poet, and editor, Lavana Kray. A photo prompt is posted each Monday until 16th March 2026. This is the second part of the Haiga as a Healing Practice feature of H4H, which looks to explore the healing potentials of haiga, a poetic form related to haiku, in dealing with illness, bereavement, estrangement, displacement, isolation and loneliness.

The experience and perspective of a poet is unique and we want to showcase this singular voice. Thus, the individual photo prompt has no title or accompanying text.

Take a cue from Lavana’s inspirational interview and consider how does the image distil the “residues” of your experience? Does it bring to mind the yearning in William Blake’s “winged life”* with its lightness of joy and release or does it evoke what Thomas Hardy described as the “the sorriness underlying the grandest things”?** Look inside and outside yourself Lavana urges and find that “something” that will best convey what you want to say.

In the Comments box below, please post no more than two original, unpublished haiku or senryu inspired by the photo on the theme of healing. In the spirit of empathy and connection we request that you comment on the other poems posted here.

 

 

Notes

*  “Eternity”, William Blake (1757-1827)
** Notebook entry for 19 April 1885, Thomas Hardy (1840–1928)

Sonam Chhoki

If you have any questions about Haiku for Healing, please use the Haiku for Healing contact form on our Contact page.

Bios

Lavana Kray is from Romania. Over the years, she has won various prizes in haiku and tanka competitions. The World Haiku Association awarded her the title of Master Haiga Artist. Her work has appeared in many print and online publications, as well as in Haiga Exhibitions organized by the World Haiku Association in Japan and Italy.  The Laval Literary Society from Canada awarded her the André-Jacob-Entrevous Prize 2023, for a literary text (haiku) combined with an artistic visual. She currently serves as haiga editor for the online journal of Japanese short forms, cattails. She has published five photo-haiku books, one tankart collection and a photo-haibun book.

She is owner-editor of https://ourbesthaiga.blogspot.com/
https://thehaikufoundation.org/thf-galleries-photo-haiku-of-lavana-kray/

Sonam Chhoki finds the Japanese short-form poetry resonates with her Tibetan Buddhist upbringing. She is inspired by her father, Sonam Gyamtsho, the architect of Bhutan’s non-monastic modern education and by her mother, Chhoden Jangmu, who taught her: “Being a girl doesn’t mean you can’t do anything.” She is the principal editor, and co-editor of haibun for the online journal of Japanese short forms, cattails.

Her chapbook of haibun, The Lure of the Threshold was published in May 2021. Mapping Absences, a collaboration of haibun, tan bun and tanka prose with Mike Montreuil was published in 2019. Another collaboration with Geethanjali Rajan: Unexpected Gift was published in November 2021. She organised a year-long email course in 2024 for The Haiku Foundation’s Haiku for Parkinson’s project.

Read past Haiku for Healing posts here.

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.

 

Sonam Chhoki

Comments (75)

    2. Dear Mircea,

      The “hermit’s prayer” for solace is a great contrast to the “so much flying”. What a wonderful response to Lavana’s photo!

      Sonam

    2. Hi Jennifer,

      Thank you for responding to this photo prompt on the theme of healing.

      “the strength” of “one soft touch” is a lovely thought and image: tender, perhaps even tentative but hope-giving.

      Sonam

    2. Hi Andrea,

      “hands” held out even in the midst of despair evokes a deep yearning for healing. It’s wonderful that Lavana’s photo inspired such an uplifting moment.

      Sonam

    3. Hi Katherine,

      Thank you for this response to Lavana’s photo.

      “hands raised” in supplication or in a moment of defeat/surrender? Your poem gives one much to mull over.

      Sonam

  7. another dream
    that misses
    life’s basketball hoop

    her gardening gloves
    my non-green fingers
    finish what she started

  8. autumn charm
    the resounding clap
    of our palms
    ***
    our trek
    through the wilderness
    fickle clouds…

    2. Hi Raji,

      How lovely that you’re trying your hand at the haiga form. Lavana’s photo seems to have inspired two vivid moments in the poems you’ve shared.

      In the first poem, “autumn” signifies tansition. It’s also associated with bountifulness with fruits and crops ripening and ready for collection. I read the “resounding clap” as a kind of a celebration of this.

      The second poem is more wistful, conveying a sense of transience. The “clouds” ever changing and moving and the “trek” in the “wilderness” suggesting a moment of solititude. Wordsworth’s “I wandered lonely as a cloud” comes to mind.

      Sonam

    1. Very fascinating. Domesticated and befriended madness produces wonderful, creative results.

    3. Hi Margaret,

      Your response to Lavana’s photo is wonderfully startling and fresh. I’m so glad that you found time to drop by and share these two poems.

      Sonam

      1. I admire everyone sharing such intimate thoughts, collectively gaining strength through interaction with each other. I found reactions to the images interesting, varying from negative ones of loneliness and despair to hope and healing. The ‘friend’ in my haiku reached out to me because she is unpacking feelings of grief after the death of her husband, which triggered memories of me being in a similar situation. I hope that through receiving such sensitive, compassionate guidance in this project you will feel supported, gaining in strength and finding a way forward.

    2. “fairy glass” is a lovely unexpected image.

      Thank you for this great response to Lavana’s photo.

      Sonam

    1. It’s worth being so beautifully determined. You open the door to the possibility of anything.

  12. Andy, than you for your positive healing poem.
    We are all dandelions seeking light.
    There is always always hope.

      2. Vleugels van satijn

        nu de lucht geklaard is,
        laat ik d’aarde los
        én… misschien ben ‘k morgen,
        al voorbij de zon
        mag ik jou nog even dragen,
        voor ik gewichtloos word
        of wil je nog wat praten,
        over die mooiste nacht,
        toen jij mij vleugels gaf

        nu de lucht geklaard is,
        laat ik alles los
        jij tooide mij met vleugels,
        hoog en wijd gespreid
        zodat ik m’n hele leven,
        héél vrij mijzelf kon zijn
        die nacht, vermomd als vlinder,
        zijn vleugels waren wij,
        vleugels van satijn..

      3. Wings of satin

        now that the air has cleared,
        I let go of the earth
        and… maybe tomorrow I will be
        already beyond the sun
        Can I carry you for a while,
        before I become weightless
        or do you want to talk some more,
        about that most beautiful night,
        when you gave me wings

        now that the air has cleared,
        I let go of everything
        you adorned me with wings,
        high and wide spread
        so that all my life,
        could be myself very freely
        that night, disguised as a butterfly,
        we were his wings,
        wings of satin..

        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RXR7BZqwj0k

    2. Hi again,

      Your poem creates a great sense of release/relief that comes once we let go of the “earth” ( signifying perhaps a physical burden/ pain) and turn to the light of possibilities and hope.

      Sonam

  14. tossing a dove…
    the healing power
    of peace
    *
    baby steps…
    at last strong enough
    to walk on her own
    *

    1. Hi Laurie,

      Two quite different yet lovely responses to Lavana’s photo.

      I like how you’ve caught the physicality of the act of “tossing” a dove. It creates a nice contrast to the gentleness one associates with “peace”.

      The second poem plays on a sense of freedom for the baby perhaps breaking away from parental control and support to discover being one’s own person.

      Sonam

    1. Dandelions are like humans, or vice versa, but there are many similarities. Even with the dandelion fluff that spreads everywhere at the slightest breeze.
      I love your haiku, Alan.
      Lavana

  16. winter day
    his life hangs on
    one finger

    so cold
    the story of the hands
    beneath the gloves

    1. Hi Urszula,

      Thank you for taking the time to read and comment on the many poems posted here. Your thoughtful and generous reading and comments have certainly enlivened this haiga for healing feature.

      “winter day” and “so cold” both evoke a deep wistfulness. In the first poem, oen gets a sense of the frailness even powerlessness. But the use of “hangs” injects a note of connection with another person/life force/energy. And therefore, of hope.

      In the second poem, there’s again a reckoning of something poignant and even tragic. Does the “so cold” signify fatality? The detail, “story of the hands” suggest something left unsaid or perhaps unfulfilled.

      Sonam

      1. Hi Sonam,

        Thank you for your comment, which offers so much life wisdom and sensitivity.
        Death is one possibility, but my point was that in winter, when our hands are covered in gloves, we know much less about the person we meet. Hands say so much.

        Urszula

  17. Billie,

    I enjoyed the details in each of these. The “auction” poems hint at the ideosyncrasies of distinct individuals. The algebra class brought back memories of school and finding my place. Fine work.

    1. In both of these, I enjoyed the connection to school days since the big snow here has canceled classes for the kids and also work for many local offices. i esp. like the second poem with the tie to raised hands in a classroom scene.

  19. remission,
    I receive a
    bouquet of time

    stripping his bed
    she presses get well cards
    to her cheek

    1. Excellent work. Both are quite poignant. In the second, I see someone coming upon the bed of a loved one who’s recently passed. The emotion is conveyed well.

    2. A bouquet of time…so poetic. We can only imagine how many strands this bouquet has. Thank you for these touching lines.
      Lavana

  20. tulip mania
    auctioning off
    the rarest bulb

    algebra class
    daydreaming
    in the back row

    estate auction
    a cardboard box
    of opera gloves

        1. What I meant was were the deceased’s family surprised to find them, maybe reflecting an unknown facet of that person’s life

    2. Billie,

      I enjoyed the details in each of these. The “auction” poems hint at the ideosyncrasies of distinct individuals. The algebra class brought back memories of school and finding my place. Fine work.

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