Health Haiku. Let’s switch up the writing style a bit for today’s posts! As you probably know, a haiku is a “miniature Japanese poem consisting of 17 syllables – five syllables in first line, seven in second, and five in the last. No rhyme or meter scheme is employed when writing haiku. The aim of the haiku is to create something greater than the sum of the parts.” Traditionally, haiku poems were written about nature and aim to capture the essence of the aspect of nature that is being described.

Opening the WEGO Health Blog each day in April is a bit like opening the little doors on an Advent Calendar. Each day, as I discover a new prompt, it is with the kind of anticipation I imagine my little girl felt not to long ago as she guessed what might lie behind each door. Today’s prompt is a little gem and requires me to use what’s left of my creative writing skills and compose a haiku. How hard can it be to string together seventeen syllables about my health? When I told my daughter about it, she responded with the air of someone who might expire from ennui, “Haikus are easy. But sometimes they don’t make sense. Refrigerator.”  An internet meme, apparently. Of course, I didn’t know that at the time, and instead looked at her with the kind of bewilderment that used to cross my mother’s face in response to some smart Aleck comment that flew from the lips of the altogether bored adolescent version of myself. “Really? You wrote a haiku about a refrigerator?” I stupidly ask. She reiterates, this time, with emphasis, “You’re kidding me. Mom. Haikus are easy. but sometimes they don’t make sense. Refrigerator.” Because it wasn’t accompanied by a rolling of the eyes that often seems to involve her entire body, I didn’t take offense. But because I am her mother, I’m going to have the last word. I’m going to make my haiku into a  tanka which she didn’t know has two extra lines, the shimo-no-ku, each composed of seven syllables. I admit it. I didn’t know either. Here’s my tanka, reminding me to remind everyone to support the research that will lead us to knowing what causes it and how to prevent it:

Mammograms missed it

Dense tissue hid it from view

Cancer in my breast.

Is my biology key?

Science must focus on cause

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