Haiku for Healing

Haiku for Healing – Haiga as a Healing Practice

Week 5 photo prompt

The week 5 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In the Comments box below, please post no more than two original, unpublished haiku or senryu inspired by the photo on the theme of healing.

Your poems in response to Lavana’s evocative photos have been inspiring  and deeply moving. As we near the end of this Haiga as a Healing Practice feature of H4H, please take a moment to share your thoughts on the poems shared here. It would be such a warm gesture of connecting with other poets in a spirit of healing.

 


 

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 (74)

  1. Contents under Pressure/ Periodic Table Daily Meals/ Elements Vary. Second Entry Elements Vary/ heavy mettle Iron/ Arms Strong Will
    *Aim Power (( * empower))

    1. Hi Douglass,

      Thank you for responding to Lavana’s photo with your poems.

      I wondered if this is how you intended to post in the Comments box. It can be a bit tricky at times formatting a poem.

      Contents under Pressure
      Periodic Table Daily Meals
      Elements Vary.

      Elements Vary
      heavy mettle Iron
      Arms Strong Will
      *Aim Power (( * empower))

      Douglass Josseff

      Sonam

  5. Bone to bones
    Arms to leg
    Clinging to life

    The love I feel
    Caressed in you
    A flower’s desire

  6. let go
    the leaves rustle
    spring will arrive

    autumn breeze
    the desire
    to slacken the grip

    1. Hi Padma,

      Two seasonal observances in your poems. The first conveys a sense of the renewal in the natural cycle. “leaves rustle” suggests dried and at the end of the cycle of growth. But then the hope of spring brings to mind a regrowth and renewal.

      In the second poem, “slacken” is a great way of alluding to how everything winds down at this time of the year and letting things be seems an appropriate response in sync with the seasonal change.

      Thank you for your poems in response to Lavana’s photo. Do feel welcome to share your thoughts on the works of other poets.

      Sonam.

    2. heavy mettle xompose/ fL/ R foot notes transpose/ Moon Walk Sunflowers Smile

      1. Hi Douglass,

        You have quite a complex mix of images and thoughts here.

        Thank you for responding to Lavana’s photo.

        Sonam

  9. tight grip
    grand son’s
    first vaccine

    that huge hug!
    returning to work
    time of bereavement

    1. Hi Subhashini,

      I like how you’ve presented two different scenarios in your reponse to Lavana’s photo. The first conveys a brief but anxious moment and the second poem touch on the universal longing for comfort in bereavement. A hug is such a tactile gesture of sympathy.

      Sonam

  11. holding you
    away from the fire
    my warmth

    the comfort
    in your strong arms
    a fire kindled

    1. Fire combined with wood in your interpretation gains creative power, there is no destruction here.

      1. Aww, Urszula, you understand me so well. Thank you so much for your comment.

    2. Hi Eavonka,

      How well you juxtapose the “fire” and “my warmth”. The fire, a source of heat but perhaps also of danger, while “my warmth” is protective and safe.

      The second poem has a lovely touch of romance. The “fire” here in a more benign and comforting form.

      Thank you for these beautiful responses to Lavana’s photo.

      Sonam

      1. I deeply appreciate your comments, Sonam. It is heartening to know my intentions were so well understood. 💜💜💜

    1. Very interesting and thought-provoking. Past, present, and future – you’ll find it all here.

    3. Hi Richard,

      A seasonal repsonse to Lavana’s photo.

      “lent” is a Christian tradition in preparation for Easter. It evokes the 40 days of fasting in the desert that Jesus undertook while facing the temptations by Satan. It made me wonder if “the carpenter” is an allusion to Joseph, the father of Jesus. This would give the image of “plays hide-and-seek,” a lively and happy touch.

      I enjoyed this possible scenario.

      Sonam

    1. I particularly like the contrast this makes to the image where nothing seems soft, Jeannie.

  14. I hope this is where I post haiku. I love what you are doing Lavana!

    feeling you
    n my arms till the end
    of the moon

    heart cold feet
    a microwaved towel
    wrapped around

    an’ya

    1. Dear an’ya , personally, I don’t do much here. I enjoy Sonam’s project and the poems inspired by my photos.
      Thank you for your contribution.
      Lavana

  15. the tender aroma
    in his cupped palms
    dad’s in the moon

    how big the world is
    she tightens
    her grip

    1. Very touching. Hugs. Each one is important. It’s hard to predict which one will be the last.

  17. broken
    by rough seas
    boat’s timbers
    offer a float

    fresh hewn wood
    recalls carpenter’s smell
    wife clings

    1. Those who want it will find a way. Those who don’t will find an excuse. You find a way, and that’s so beautiful.

      Thank you for letting me read your haiku.

    1. Hi R. Suresh Babu,

      Your repsonse to Lavana’s photo presents a sombre moment and scene.

      The “pier” brings to mind a a sturcture overlooking a river or a lake.

      The image of the moon rising over the pier is a beautiful one. Is it a witness to the funeral pryes on the “burial mound”?

      Please feel welcome to share your thoughts on the poems posted by fellow poets here.

      Sonam

    1. Even a single grain of forgiveness matters, but what if an avalanche of grains follows? May those we forgive become good people.

    1. Sometimes something new can be created from these pieces, although the process itself is painful.

  23. late winter sun
    something loosening
    in my shadow

    physiotherapy
    the sparrow hopping closer
    each morning

  25. receding with time
    ravaged archipelagos
    between her arms

    last rites
    coppicing a branch
    of the family tree

  26. slow dance…
    leading each other
    to the fullness of grace
    *
    close hug…
    finding a mother
    in the bare bones of a toy
    *

    1. Hi Laurie,

      Two fantastic poems inspired by Lavana’s photo!

      There’s a lovely sense of harmony and intimacy in the first poem.

      The second poem is quite poignant in the way your weave memory and longing “in the bare bones of a toy”. A talisman of connection and comfort in a moment of loneliness.

      Sonam

  29. nature’s healing touch…
    the psoriasis of dark
    thoughts
    **
    turbulence…
    clinging to a
    sturdy log

    1. I was particularly moved by your 2nd poem, Raji. I felt it captured so much of the healing experience.

    1. Both poignant, Christopher, but in very different ways. The first seems like a #metoo monent. The second one reflects being comforted at a scary time.

  31. too much to bear
    but you can accept it
    so tenderly

    his whole world
    safe in his slim
    strong arms

    1. To accept it tenderly…
      That sounds so good to me…
      There’s also a nice contrast between slim and strong in the second poem.
      Love
      Lavana

    2. Hi Urszula,

      It’s amazing how an image resonates with each of us.

      I like the way “hope” threads through both your poems.

      Thank you for these memorable poems and also, for embracing the spirit of this haiga for healing by taking the time to read and comment on the other poems.

      Sonam

      1. Hi Sonam,

        I am so grateful for your beautiful comments. May hope be with you in all circumstances.

        Urszula

        1. Hi again, Urszula,

          As Celan said Language is the “Only one thing remained reachable, close and secure amid all losses.”

          In your memorable and thoughtful poems and your comments, there is hope . . .

          Sonam

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