Do you Haiku?

Hello, my name is Meghan and I am a Haiku-aholic.

It is no secret. . .I love poetry! Caroline's 2nd grade class did a unit in Haiku and it reawakened my interest a few months ago.  I have started keeping a little journal and jotting things down here and there.  If you aren't familiar with Haiku . . . I pulled the following off a Haiku website for a brief 4-1-1.

"Haiku is both a type of poetic pattern and a way of experiencing the world. This short, 17-syllable form, usually written in three lines with a 5-7-5 syllable count, focuses our attention on a single, insightful moment. Closely tied to the Japanese aesthetic of Yugen and the spirituality of Buddhism, Haiku looks deceptively simple, yet can take years to master."

It may take years to master but the Sykes family sure had some haiku fun over dinner the other night. Before you envision our family going all high-brow reciting poetry together, I will warn you that Henry did work his all-time favorite word, "fartlips", into one of the poems.  Leave it to my boys to discover Haiku works very well with bathroom humor.

We went around the table, each person adding one word in the 5-7-5 syllable count in the poem, until it was completed.

It is my honor to present to you, the Sykes Family Dinner Haiku. . .

"Dinner"
Plates of fresh rockfish
    noodles with dressing pad thai
lime in glass cold wine.

"Watermelon"
Watermelon grows!
    delicious juicy seedless
ripe for the picking!

"The Dog"
The dog smells like poo
   ears like velvet rainbows
scratching paws and tail.

And last but not least...

"Farts"
Melting, squinting toots!
   fartlips - gross! Butt burps, oh my!
Brown turtle is near.

And there you have it, our dinner haiku! I hope this hasn't turned you against haiku or turned your stomach in any way ;-) . It was a different and fun way to share the dinner table with my husband and kids.  I hope to share with you some of my other haiku in future posts.  I am not worried about that "years to master" stuff. 

So...do you haiku? 

--Meghan