All around us is a tug of war. A tug here and a tug there. By people and peoples who are not the ones dying. Not the ones living their fears. Not the ones whose blood flows.

And yet so many tugs. And among all these tugs and stretches it is the common man who pays. 

Wales Haiku Journal Winter Issue is out. Thank you to editors Joe Woodhouse & C.X. Turner for selecting my haibun for this issue.

Here is my haibun in the issue:

Nothing remains of the home except the kitchen. Not even a wall separates that room from the elements outside. The cold inside lies bare for all to see. Yet somehow, still intact, bottles of vitamins squat on the microwave oven. A bowl of fruit waits for a kid to run by and grab an apple. That wait is forever. That kid will never skip by. That lone kitchen beckons the world as no tears do.

red eyed
I track the Wolf Moon
a barn owl wails

For a short while, snow wraps the world in silence, until the bombs arrive.
Again.

— Sangita Kalarickal, Wales Haiku Journal Winter 2025

I hope you feel the poem. It was written as a response to a photo of an apartment building ripped apart by bombs. Miraculously, some of the home still stood intact in the midst of debris.

Read the full issue here: https://www.waleshaikujournal.com/winter2024