Another Light Rainy Night (Haiku)

As long as I have heard about or seen haiku, I thought it was simply a matter of having 17 syllables (5-7-5). But that is only rule number 1. I have discovered that alone does not make haiku. There are three other rules. In addition to the 17-syllable rule, usually divided as noted above, there should be a reference to (2) nature (not human nature), (3) one event, and (4) happening now. I read this in a book called "Haiku in English" by Harold G. Henderson. It was first printed in 1967, and for all these years I had never heard this. All these years I have been doing it wrong. And since I learned this, I have not been able to write a single haiku. I am wondering now what could be preventing me from writing even one haiku poem. Could it be because I live in an apartment a few yards away from the Interstate and can't even hear the cicadas singing in the summer? Could it be that there is not that much nature to experience living in the city limits and, especially, in suburbia? I am not sure, but I want to try to write one. Invisible breeze gently moves leaves in the pot Reaching for the rain I must add that I am listening to "Albinoni, Adagio in G minor," which is very calming and beautiful, consisting of mostly strings. Obviously, I am not watching the video, which is actually not a video, but just an image of a fall scene. The music, "popularly attributed to the 18th century Venetian master Tomaso Albinoni, but in fact composed almost entirely by the 20th century musicologist and Albinoni biographer Remo Giazotto," makes for a very peaceful opportunity for meditation, reading or writing. Now the music has changed to "Relaxing Classical Music | Beethoven | Massenet | Saint - Saëns | Bach," with added piano and the image of a forest in the background, a lake or a pond in the foreground with a fall color scheme, red, yellow, green, orange, brown, but not a picture of fall as in the previous selection. The new knowledge about writing haiku will not cause me to follow all those rules, and I may or may not tell everyone they have to write haiku following all those rules. The simple 17-syllable rule has been useful my entire life as a way to shift into a thoughtful mood and a way to create something with minimal stress or high expectation, but I will add these rules to my toolkit. I am adjusting to the reality that as humans we are always wanting to be better than we are, at least that is how I have always seen human nature and Western Civilization. We want to accomplish things, we want to impact the world around us, and perhaps we are too hard on ourselves at times. Before I started writing tonight, I was thinking about what freedom is. It means a lot of things to a lot of people, but to me it is freedom to be at peace with the world and with God and with myself, regardless of what anyone thinks about me or the necessity of worrying about politics or world affairs. As I shared last night, estrangement is my constant companion, and has been for quite some time now. I was hoping to explore that further, and I expect I will, but for now, I will simply say I am grateful to be living in America, the land of the free and the home of the brave. The music has changed again to "Relaxing with classical music | Grieg, Pachelbel, Bach, Beethoven." It's beautiful. So happy with my new laptop. The sound is a great improvement over my retired device. I'm going to try to write one more haiku and then sign off. Sunset viewed through clouds Orange and blue in between Another light rainy night "The main objective of all haiku techniques is to recreate the circumstances that aroused the poet's emotion." Harold G. Henderson And I close with this: "...Whatever you do, do all to the glory of God" (1 Corinthians 10:31).