April is National Poetry Month and today is Haiku Poetry Day. My friend Annette Makino is a master of this slight poetic form and you can read some her poems here. If you’d like to learn more about this form, check out this article of definitions by the Haiku Society of America and the discipline of Haiku here. As you will read, the 5-7-5 form is not exactly haiku because our syllables and sounds are different from Japanese syllables and sound. But I forgive myself my clumsy American ways, because the practice of noticing the world around you is the same in any language.

even the cactus
dons her treacherous beauty
pink buds crowned with thorns