WHR 2025 – Haibun

World Haiku Review Spring 2025

Mt Fugendake Nagasaki – painting by Susumu Takiguchi

Haibun

Brijesh Raj

touch of winter…
…the soft warmth
of fur on foot

The hilltop sanatorium hosts a nuanced calm. The kind our persian cat Faye relishes. Little squirrels browse through the grass, play tag and scale trees with staccato hugs. Ignoring the senior humans in their stone and wood bungalows.

afternoon still
the crack of dried leaves
beneath squirrels

 
She watches through flower shaped ventilation ports cut in the balcony. A little paw s.l.o.w.l.y tops the wall, followed by another and a hunter’s head with ears coned forward and pupils dilated. Although her perfect, dilute calico camouflage is marred by a vivid blue knitted infant’s sweater embroidered with red and white flowers.

high pitched squeaks
the squirrel’s tail
keeps time

A few yards away, a pheasant pair carry a smidgen of brown to an evergreen, whilst a wagtail khol-brushes a shrub a few hops away.

in and out…
the fluorescent bob
of a pigeon’s neck

The old clock tower rings in the prenight, as little winged creatures stir in the grass. Its tones are dignified and sonorous. Much like the handlebar-mustached caretaker’s.

brown tipped frond
the violent touch
of claw and wind

The day creeps by deceptively fast. Yellow and white garden flowers stand still trying to catch the last of the dying day. A chirrup, a whirr and a warble airbrush the shrubbery. Dusk slips past the canopy fish netting the sky, carefully ranged orange peels and tightly curled up dogs.

barred owls
blink
and they’re gone

Shunya

The voice that matters trades his cpap mask for arterial and central lines, endotracheal and ryle’s tubes. It would free his veins and arms and reduce the load on the heart, they say. He continues to frown at the, no food nor water except through the tube, instruction.

rise and rise
a riptide
of tears

It is conspicuously slow, this heavy tread of time whilst the world sleeps. Outside, apples fall from their trees. Some before their time.

empty bed
the space within
without

*Shunya…zero

Jennifer Gurney


Becoming a Mom

Sitting in the lobby of the hospital where you were born, we stood at the sound of the elevator dinging each time it opened. For what felt like hours, but maybe it was just minutes. When it was you, my breath caught in my lungs. I had anticipated this very moment my entire life. The tears sprung all on their own. I heard no sound and saw no sight other than you. I tried to take a step but was frozen in place, transfixed by the knowledge of your existence.

placed in my arms the
very first moment my heart
grew a new chamber

My House Seems Empty



occasionally
yours join mine, even if only
as an echo

My son was here for Mother’s Day weekend and I was thinking how cool it was to hear his footsteps on the stairs again.nEspecially for the first time at my new home, where I’ve lived for less than a year. I got to thinking about his footsteps on the stairs in all of our homes when he was growing up. Then this prompt arrived and … serendipity. I’ll keep working on it to maybe add another section to include that part. We’ll see. Might be okay to leave it sad.



Country Roads

I’ll never forget
entering West Virginia
singing Country Roads

Note: Powerful memory. We were on a 10-state road trip visiting potential colleges. My then-teenage son turned on John Denver when we came to an incredible vista in WV and we all started singing, seeing the landscape that inspired this iconic song. This is now layered over the memory of my first concert: front-row seats at a John Denver concert in Kalamazoo, Michigan when I was 20. When I hear this song now, 12 and nearly 30 years later, I’m in the stadium and in the mountains simultaneously….




Joshua St. Claire
 
Family Dinner

We stopped over to grab a bite at my in-laws’ house. We just opened the door and walked in. My daughter didn’t do anything. She wasn’t being loud or even approaching it. We just walked in the door and, in a second, it was upon her. Right for the face. Its jaws are like a steel vise. My mother-in-law acted quickly and grabbed the break stick and pepper spray. Blood spurted all over everything, all of us. All I could see was blood, flapping flesh, and a jawbone. The ambulance came. It really is a miracle. Praise God that the doctors saved her face. She looks normal, but you can still see the scar on her jaw when she is in the sun and she screams whenever she sees a dog—even a poodle on TV. Afterward, despite the break stick and the pepper spray, the dog walked off ate some kibble and took a nap, like nothing happened. It had to be put down, of course, and, now, my in laws aren’t talking to us. They just keep saying, “you killed my baby, you killed my baby, you killed my baby…”

pit bull adoption
a sticker on the window reads
“who rescued who”

***

Beauty Mark

I tell him
that her imperfections make her more beautiful.
broken tulips
                      a fork in the road

Neena Singh

Trepverter

I freeze when a verbal conflict erupts with a loved one. My mind becomes blank, my heart races, and I retreat into a protective shell of silence

As the storm subsides, and calm returns, my mind shifts into overdrive, replaying the moments with words I could have said.

late-blooming cherry—
the pause between thunder
and its echo

 
trepverter means “stepwords,” or the words you come up with “on your way out” when it is too late to use them

 

• WHR 2025 – 100 Haijin part 13
• Mountains of Japan
• WHR 2025 – Haibun
• WHR 2025 – Vanguard Haiku
• WHR 2025 – Shintai Haiku