Haiku-a-day

I took a creative writing class my senior year in high school. Mrs. Meleski, bless her, was a great teacher! In that class, I formed a couple of friendships that endure to this day. I also developed a taste for the Japanese poetry form known as haiku. There's about a jillion variations, but the one I learned first was a triplet that had five syllables in the first line, seven in the second, and five in the third. The haiku is a perfect form for the person how has observations on things, but not a lot of time - or in my case, talent - to write a lot. Because of the discipline required, haiku can be very evocative and profound. Like a Japanese sand garden, they are austere and direct.

This morning, on the way to work, I saw a bit of nature that inspired a haiku, and got thinking that maybe I'd set myself a challenge. I'm going to try to write a haiku a day for a year. Don't know if I'll make it, but I'm going to give it a shot. I've never challenged my creativity this way.

And yes, I've watched, "Julie and Julia" twice, and enjoyed it, so that probably has a good deal to do with this impulse.

So here we go.
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Well, I almost made it. I got to the 5th of March. It was fun, and not too stressful, but in the end, the stuff that was stressful just buried this project. I'll probably still add to it occasionally. In fact, I composed a haiku this morning, while I was working outside at my property in the South Valley of Albuquerque.