Issue 65 – Moon Haiku

Mississippi blues . . .
caressing the scarred
moon in the cold

Monica Kakkar, USA/India

rushing home
I stop for the moon
and find myself

Mary Beth Defer, Rocklin, CA

this year’s worm moon
inching my way
toward 70

Kim Klugh, Lancaster, PA

half moon
behind the clouds
mid life crisis

Neha Singh Soni , India

nets of bare branches
once more the moon
slips through

Lisa Billa, San Jose, CA, USA

day moon
outside the clinic
more protesters

Rowan Beckett Minor, USA

almost close enough
to lick
strawberry moon

Tracy Davidson, Warwickshire, UK

full moon
the sound recorder of
shattered dreams

Martina Matijević, Vidovci, Croatia

calm night
a cosmic coin afloat
in the wishing well

Pegah Rahmati Nezhad, Tehran, Iran

sweet moondrops
in my mom’s
rice pudding

*Note – it’s an Indian tradition by mothers to keep rice pudding under October/November full moon for their children’s longevity.

C. Oulens, India

inner wolf
I stop howling
and become the moon

Julie Parker-Kinsey, Auckland, NZ

burnt orange
the river tide
full of moon

Joanna Ashwell, UK

evening wind
cannot help but whistle
with the moon

James Penha, Bali, Indonesia

Michele’s Musings

Hello friends! 

You may have noticed an extraordinary amount of haiku this issue. Sally and I were just so impressed. We are justifying the amount because today is December 13th  therefore, 13 haiku. 

But really, the skill of submitters has grown over the year, making it more and more difficult to choose. And remember, even if we don’t choose your haiku, it doesn’t mean it wasn’t good!  Every editor has different tastes, and haiku can fall differently on different ears.  

Did you know that in Japanese haiku there are five seasons? Aside from spring, summer, fall, and winter, New Year is its own season. This is mainly for cultural reasons. In Japan, New Year is the most important holiday of the year. But also, in the lunar calendar New Year fell in early spring. So it was a time of renewal. When the switch was made to the Gregorian calendar, the traditions around that remained. 

Some season words for New Year include first sunrise, first laughter, first sparrow, and big house cleaning. You can look up more season words on Wikipedia. 

Sally and I will be spending time with our families as the holidays approach as well as doing some traveling, so our next issue will be in the New Year on January 17th. 

Happy New Year to you all! 

Keep writing! 

Member News

From Charlotte Digregorio’s blog:

sparse palette
through the flurries
of night

new poem

two birds
english idioms which
wiped out species

Frogpond, Vol. 48:2, Spring/Summer 2025

by Jerome Berglund (USA)

waning moon
during our silence
the drip of icicles

by Chen-ou Liu (Canada)

childhood stutter
stone-shaped syllables
in the stream

Acorn, Issue #55, Autumn 2025

cherry blossom petals
my toddler’s
pink lemonade pucker

Honourable Mention, Vancouver Cherry Blossom Festival Haiku Competition 2025

snowflakes on my eyelashes
counting the reasons
to stick around

hedgerow, Issue #149, August 2025

never quite belonging lawn daisy days

Kingfisher Journal, Issue #12, October 2025

by Kelly Sargent (USA)

From Tiny Words:

long workday . . .
I sit in the garage
till the Zeppelin ends

-Michael Dylan Welch

day of surgery
this sudden interest
in my lifeline

-Kim Klugh

Haiku poet Valentina Ranaldi-Adams and wood artist A. D. Adams

combined their talents to create this unique plaque. It was donated

to the 44th Annual Holiday Tree Festival that raises money

for the Akron Children’s Hospital.

The following members were all nominated for the Touchstone Award for Individual Poems by Sense & Sensibility:

Congratulations to Tony Williams, Monica Kakkar, Martina Matijević, Chen-ou Liu, Josephine LoRe, Valentina Ranaldi-Adams, kjmunro, Melissa Dennison

Nominated by the Enchanted Garden:

Marilyn Ashbaugh, USA, Debbie Strange, Canada, Eavonka Ettinger, United States, Emil Karla, France

Ruth Holzer is pleased to announce her new haibun chapbook –“On the Way to Man in Moon Passage,”– has just been published by dancing girl press. 

Karl Kliparchuk had this haiku published in the November issue of Shadow Pond:

first sun rising
first sky -
a blue umbrella 

Finally, Laurinda Lind has been recently published in Five Fleas, Itchy Poetry, Haiku Dialogue, Renku Sessions, and Mayfly!

Congratulations to all poets!

Remember to send us your news so we can join the celebration.

Places to submit

The Fourth Annual Rachel Sutcliffe Haibun Contest opens December 1^st and runs until December 15^th. This is an ekphrastic contest, with three images to choose from. Please note the submission email for the contest is different from the regular one. 

Cuttlefish Press is open until December 15^th for haiku of mycology! They strongly prefer previously published haiku but because this is an unusual subject they will also take unpublished haiku for this particular call. 

Alan Summers is offering some brand-new haiku and other short form classes. Check out all the details at Call of the Page. 

Haiku Canada’s Betty Drevniok Award for 2026 opens December 15^th and runs until February 28^th. Find the submission form here. 

The Irish Haiku Society International Haiku Competition runs until December 31^st. There is a small fee to enter, but some big prizes!  

Members of Haiku Canada are reminded to send in their haiku for the members anthology. Deadline is January 31^st. It’s easy to become a member of this great group and well worth the fee. 

The Internationally recognized, annual Golden Haiku competition invites poets to submit up to two original, self-authored haiku. Selected haiku will be displayed on signs in tree box gardens throughout Washington, D.C. in mid-March. 

This Week’s Prompt

Write one or two New Year haiku using season words. If you have a special New Year tradition that appears in your haiku, please let us know about that. Submissions are due on January 14^th. 

Send one or two haiku to sally_quon@yahoo.com or to Michele at kelownalady@hotmail.com. Find our full submission info here. Don’t forget to tell us where you are writing from!

“Those who contemplate the beauty of the earth find reserves of strength that will endure as long as life lasts.”

—Rachel Carson

Michele Rule

Michele Rule is a disabled writer from Kelowna BC. She is especially interested in the topics of chronic illness, relationships and nature. Michele is published in the Asahi Shimbun Haikuist, Pine Cone Review, the Enchanted Garden, Five Minute Lit, Shadow Pond, WordCityLit, and the anthologies F*ck the Patriarchy, Chicken Soup for the Soul, and To Live Here, among others. She is an associate member of the League of Canadian Poets and Haiku Canada. Michele has been awarded honourable mention twice for the Vancouver Cherry Blossom Festival Haiku Invitational and also for the Haiku Northwest Porad Award. Her first chapbook is Around the World in Fifteen Haiku. Michele lives in a beautiful garden surrounded by people who love her just the way she is.

michelerule.ca/

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Sally Quon( Writer / Poet )

Sally Quon is a disabled poet and photographer living in the Okanagan Valley of beautiful British Columbia, Canada. She is an associate member of The League of Canadian Poets and a member of Haiku Canada. Her work has been published in numerous journals including The Heron’s Nest, Modern Haiku, Frogpond, First Frost, and Time Haiku. She is currently working on her first book of haiku, haibun, and haiga, tentatively titled, “My Valley, My Home.”

Featherstone Creative

featherstonecreative.wordpress.com/

• Ginko Walk at Munson Pond
• Maude Roxby Ginko
• Interview with Michael Dylan Welch