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In the Comments box below, please post no more than two original, unpublished haiku or senryu inspired by the photo on the theme of healing.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.
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Contents under Pressure/ Periodic Table Daily Meals/ Elements Vary. Second Entry Elements Vary/ heavy mettle Iron/ Arms Strong Will
*Aim Power (( * empower))
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
felled trees
love
for the taking
Nothing can defeat you. You always fight.
less fragile
when surrounded by family
in moments of illness
Agree with you, Guido.
Keep writing!
Lavana
Thank you so Lavana!
Bone to bones
Arms to leg
Clinging on love
Bone to bones
Arms to leg
Clinging to life
The love I feel
Caressed in you
A flower’s desire
I felt the tenderness of the wood and the strength of life energy.
let go
the leaves rustle
spring will arrive
autumn breeze
the desire
to slacken the grip
earth keeps faith
faith bends in the earth
life will come
iron arms cradle
cut woods
ants circle home
Iron, wood, ants: an interesting association and suggestion.
I like it.
Lavana
heavy mettle xompose/ fL/ R foot notes transpose/ Moon Walk Sunflowers Smile
pain
no one sees
—a lonely burden
each step
a victory—
no medal
So many heroes carry their burden alone.
tight grip
grand son’s
first vaccine
that huge hug!
returning to work
time of bereavement
seeking solace
on a wooden log . . .
passing cloud
Dear Sathya, this is a real haiku spirit. I find myself in it…
Lavana
Thank you dear Lavana for your kind words.
holding you
away from the fire
my warmth
the comfort
in your strong arms
a fire kindled
Fire combined with wood in your interpretation gains creative power, there is no destruction here.
Aww, Urszula, you understand me so well. Thank you so much for your comment.
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
Lent’s end
the carpenter plays
hide-and-seek
Very interesting and thought-provoking. Past, present, and future – you’ll find it all here.
Sermon on the Mound/ Picture is batter then Flycatcher/ Parable Play
resilience
slips softly
away…
I particularly like the contrast this makes to the image where nothing seems soft, Jeannie.
Thank you Eavonka :)
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
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
the tender aroma
in his cupped palms
dad’s in the moon
how big the world is
she tightens
her grip
I love the image of her grip tightening.
hospice visit-
the frail hug of dad
one more time
Very touching. Hugs. Each one is important. It’s hard to predict which one will be the last.
Thank you for sharing your thoughts… we never know when is the last time 😭
broken
by rough seas
boat’s timbers
offer a float
fresh hewn wood
recalls carpenter’s smell
wife clings
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.
thank you Urszula, for sharing your thoughts about my ku
holding on
my hands join
to begin again
Happy new phase. May your hands remain joined.
pier moon
the haze of woodsmoke
from a burial mound
one more war . . .
grasping for the grain
of forgiveness
Even a single grain of forgiveness matters, but what if an avalanche of grains follows? May those we forgive become good people.
picking up the pieces
because that’s all that is left
of yesterdays life
Sometimes something new can be created from these pieces, although the process itself is painful.
softening grass
~~~softening massater
muscles
late winter sun
something loosening
in my shadow
physiotherapy
the sparrow hopping closer
each morning
There’s tremendous hope in both your poems, Nalini. Thanks for these.
feeling safe in her embrace
if only the world
could find such peace
receding with time
ravaged archipelagos
between her arms
last rites
coppicing a branch
of the family tree
Interesting way of putting the image into words.
slow dance…
leading each other
to the fullness of grace
*
close hug…
finding a mother
in the bare bones of a toy
*
the impossible dream
of healing all the scars
tree hugging
Hugging a tree always has something healing about it. I often do it when I go to the forest.
forest bathing –
the resurgence
of inner peace
nature’s healing touch…
the psoriasis of dark
thoughts
**
turbulence…
clinging to a
sturdy log
I was particularly moved by your 2nd poem, Raji. I felt it captured so much of the healing experience.
she stiffens
at his
embrace
finding an anchor
as she awaits
the diagnosis
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.
too much to bear
but you can accept it
so tenderly
his whole world
safe in his slim
strong arms
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
Your tender comment gave me great joy. Thank you.
Love
Urszula
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
Hi Sonam,
I am so grateful for your beautiful comments. May hope be with you in all circumstances.
Urszula