It could be spring or the announcement of the Cherry Blossom festival in Washington D.C. or a distracted mind, but I have been thinking of haiku lately, traditional Japanese poetry of 17 syllables.

Japanese culture has strict rules about haiku, including that each haiku contain a seasonal word, a "cutting" where the poem moves abruptly from scene to thought, and that each haiku follows the 5-7-5 pattern of syllables per line.  This is what happens when a nerdy mind wanders.

Growing up, I had a lot of practice with writing haiku. It was not my favorite form of self expression. The rules always felt like constraints to me - being of a more "freestyle" nature.

But lately, the idea of having boundaries and convention has taken a different sheen to me. One thing that has always appealed to me is how haiku celebrates the ordinary.  Traditional haiku respects "the importance of the poet's first impression, just as it was, of subjects taken from daily life, and of local color to create freshness." (www.toyomasu.com/haiku)

A ChristianHaiku.com exists as well as a site devoted to hymns of haiku worship featuring the craft of a Japanese Episcopal priest with "Iron" for a pen-name.  "Iron" wrote the following haiku that was featured in Time Magazine, March 15, 1963.

At Morning Mass

The water has lost its chill:

Lent has come.

You'll find all sorts of haiku sites out there featuring the Torah in haiku, Haiku for kids, and even beer company contests featuring this traditional art form.  

So here goes, a few painfully rookie haiku to encourage your own haiku.