by Neal Whitman
lagging far behind
friends call me to hurry up
“Look†— summer rain sky
Neal Whitman, our 1st of the month Poetry Prof, also provides our readers a haiku per season. In the Japanese tradition, a word or phrase associated with the season is called “kigo.”
Neal is a member of the Yuki Teikei Haiku Society of San Jose, the Haiku Poets of Northern California, and the Haiku Society of America, and his haiku has been published in Simply Haiku, Bear Creek Haiku, NewVerseNews, and Ink, Sweat, & Tears. Though contemporaries vary the syllable count, he likes to stick to the traditional Japanese three-line, 5-7-5 structure that corresponds to their sound units.